My heart belongs to reds and golds, but silver has its place.
It's a hard-working buffer for colors that otherwise might not be compatible. There's nothing like a silver artemisia plunked between pink and orange flowers to negotiate an unlikely peace.
Count on silver to perform similar mediation services in a white garden. Put a blue-white flower next to a yellow-white flower, and you've got a combination that looks like gray-white next to dirty white. But bridge the two whites with a silver plant, and the combo becomes sublime.
I admit to cheating on the following list; not all the plants have silver-gray foliage. Some have variegated white leaves whose effect is silvery or frosty. Many true silver-leaved plants are Mediterranean in origin but are surprisingly hardy here. Unless noted otherwise, they are sun lovers.
ANNUALS/TENDER PERENNIALS
- Cynara cardunculus
- Melianthus major
- Senecio cineraria
- S
PERENNIALS
- Achillea millefolium
- Anthemis
- Artemisia
- Athyrium nipponicum
- Cerastium tomentosum
- Eryngium bourgatii
- Erysimum
- Helichrysum
- Heuchera
- Lamium maculatum
- Lavandula angustifolia
- Lychnis coronaria
- Miscanthus sinensis
- Nepeta
- Rudbeckia maxima
- Salvia argentea
- Santolina chamaecyparissus
- Stachys byzantina
- Teucrium fruticans
- Thymus lanuginosus
- Verbascum bombyciferum
SHRUBS/TREES
- Caryopteris clandonensis
- Chamaecyparis lawsoniana
- Cornus alternifolia
- Cornus controversa
- Elaeagnus angustifolia
- Euonymus fortunei
- Perovskia atriplicifolia
- Pyrus salicifolia
- Salix
– Dulcy Mahar
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