GBFD: Shading

I haven’t joined in with Christina’s foliage meme a little while but have still enjoyed observing foliage on my rambles. Joining in with the meme has encouraged me to notice and appreciate foliage in a different way, so do pop over to My Hesperides Garden and see her foliage post and links to those of other bloggers.

Having been looking at a specific aspects of foliage in recent months I am continuing this by looking at colour shading – not patterns, but where different shades interact or blend into each other, often as a young leaf matures, Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ (above), although not a leaf, exhibits this with beautiful shades of salmon , peach and red in the stems. Below, Pittosporum ‘Tom Thumb’ always looks decidedly poorly at this spotted stage, as it gradually tranforms its leaves from green to coppery brown.

Nandina domestica ‘Obsessed’ does the same thing rather more gracefully, foliage ageing from red to green and back to red autumn shades – or so I believe, as my plant is a fairly new resident here:

Trachelespermum asiaticum is also noted for shades of red, still largely absent on my specimen:

New rose foliage often displays pink or red shades which change to green as they fully unfurl and looks so delicate in its infancy yet early shoots have withstood several frosty nights in the last week or two without any damage – the one below shows ‘Harlow Carr’, not the best of photos.

Uncina rubra always looks attractive with its red tones intermixed with the green as if it has a regular appointment with its hairdresser:

I had forgotten where I had planted this young Chinese witch hazel Loropetalum chinensis rubrum ‘Blush’, but having found it again today I could see why it was given this name:

Realising that most of the shading I found involved pink and red shades I was pleased to be able to show a different example from our variegated holly, where the outer edges of young leaves start off as a fresh light green that is almost yellow before developing the more typical creamy whiteness exhibited in the leaf on the top right:

It has been a really interesting exercise looking at shading and of course there will be scientific reasoning because the changes, no doubt the effect of a combination of light and temperature and available nutrients affecting the cell structure of the leaves as they mature. I wonder what thoughts other bloggers have had about the foliage in their gardens? Do visit Christina’s blog to find out and perhaps think of writing your own Garden Bloggers Foliage Day* post.

*GBFD is usually the 22nd of every month but I have posted a day late.