Taste refers to both culinary and visual! Many of our most beautiful cool season foliage plants are also edible and create tasteful beauty to the gardens of spring and fall. Observe a taste of fall foliage from Powell Gardens:
Here, at the preview entrance of the Heartland Harvest Garden a pattern of foliage (all edible!) creates a beautiful bed. The center is Ruby Perfection cabbage, the bronze foliage is Cimmaron lettuce and the chartreuse is Simpson Elite lettuce. The bed is one of the four squares of next year’s Potager Garden–it is bordered by ipe (pronounced Eee-pay) wood, a very hard, rot-resistant and sustainable wood.
Even after frost some tender plants still remain beautiful and are left for interest: the tall dried plants are lime basil and the front border are frozen ornamental peppers!
Yes even in mid-November foliage is king of beauty: Here silvery green cardoon (back) and rosemary (forward) contrast with coarse and fine textures while Redboor kale is a stunning color contrast in its purple foliage attire.
Winterboor kale is the epitome of foliage texture!
