A nice combination of colours and textures is happening in this corner of the front garden. In the foreground, the round seed heads of a small lagerstoemia ‘tuscarora’ post-flowering and some small flashes of pink given by the ‘mutabilis’ rose and agastache ‘sweet lili’. At left, the backlit silver pink flower heads of miscanthus sinensis ‘variegatus’ brush against the sage coloured leaves of the feijoa hedge. In the background is cotinus coggygria ‘velvet cloak’, becoming redder and less purple as the days shorten. But the star of the show is clearly the miscanthus.
The flowers have the best silky, feathery texture.
They stand all through the winter and are very fetching in rain.
Here is the same view three months ago, in high summer.
The miscanthus has yet to send up its silvery inflorescences but the variegated foliage makes a good bright spot in the picture. The biscuity flowers of calamagrostis ‘karl forester’ are visible behind the cotinus. It’s all much greener and pinker and the edges are more defined. The plants are not yet intermingling and bleeding into each other as they are now, in late autumn.