July will see the best of red ‘perennial’ border

Posted: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 8:00 pm
By: By Jimmy Williams

Last week we began a cursory perusal of my red border, so called, which is actually filled with red, orange, yellow, purple and other hot colors. We got about halfway through the 60-foot bed.
I didn’t mention any shrubs last week, save a couple of roses, but there are three crape myrtles there, valuable for their red flowers. Two are the fairly old variety, Victor, a semi-dwarf capable of reaching 10 feet if unpruned. One is just about that, while the other one is pollarded down to two feet or so every spring and flowers on new wood at about four feet, for all practical purposes a perennial.
The other one, at the lower end of the border, is Dynamite, a newer variety that can reach 20 feet, with true red, not pinkish, flowers. It is now at about 12 feet and is never pruned.
Another shrub is a dwarf pomegranate. This a bit of a cheat, since I sink it into the ground in April in its pot, then pull it out and overwinter it in the garage. It has little orange funnel flowers beginning in June, followed by small ornamental red pomegranate fruits, a long lasting display. It is not reliably winter hardy here.
There are also three or four red hardy hibiscuses in the border, Raspberry Crush for one, and the native Hibiscus coccinea (coccinea: red) for another. The latter can reach 10 feet if unpruned, but I pinch it back a few times, which delays flowering but keeps it to six feet or so. These, though semi-woody, die to the ground each winter.
There are foliage plants, too. What would I do without heucheras, the coral bells. Grown primarily for their foliage, I have three or four different ones in the border. Caramel has leaves of yellow-brown (they’re not dead) and, indeed, caramel, mixed together, making for a show that is better than it sounds.
There are a couple of maroon varieties, and one with leaves of almost pure red — all are of the parentage of our native Heuchera villosa, and much more heat tolerant than others.
Other foliage is contributed by cannas. Though they do flower, the great paddle leaves are the raison d’etre for having them. One of ours is, I think, a species, not a hybrid or named variety, with huge maroon leaves, growing to 10 feet tall, for all the world like a banana. There is another, green-leaved, variety, with coral flowers, and one with almost black leaves, Australia.
At the lower end of the border, under the Dynamite crape myrtle, is a stand of cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis, which, of course, is red, and a blood red at that, another of the few red native wildflowers. I have a hard time keeping it going. It needs dividing and re-setting every spring to do its best. It shines forth in September.
There once was a great swath of Lucifer crocosmia, one of the most saturated red perennials going. It is aggressive, but, at four feet, flops about. I finally let it be overtaken by a red monarda, Jacob Cline, also aggressive but not so floppy.
Back to daylilies, of which I pointed out last week I only grow those which contribute in some unusual way. One of them is Autumn Minaret, an old hybrid with thin, orangish flowers. No self-respecting daylily aficionado would have it, since it has not the broad petals, diamond dusting and ruffles of modern show varieties.
What it does have is a tall stature, up to six feet or more, and numerous flowers for weeks on end. These swing and sway over underlings below in August and September, way beyond the time of 90 percent or more of others.
This border doesn’t kick in with any degree of color until May, after some of my other ones. It does have, early on, some daffodils, and sometimes I do a couple of hundred red or orange tulips, which give me one year only before running out.
In fall, I put in 100 or more maroon, “red,” or orange pansies or violas along the front, which will hold up until the other ingredients crank up.
Editor’s note: Jimmy Williams is production superintendent at The Paris Post-Intelligencer, where he also writes this column.

Published in The Messenger 6.26.12

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