Summer lull and white flowers:
I don’t have a lot of sun, but in the few places I have enough for them, the daylilies bloom in early July. But when the daylilies stop blooming, the garden lull begins, and color doesn’t start up again until the garden phlox begin their show in August. Now is the time I really appreciate foliage: spiky leaves, mounding plants, foliage texture and form, red or gold foliage and variegation that brings light to the shadier places. And white flowers. The Hydrangea arborescens 
, smooth hydrangea, fill the gap now with lace cap or double flowers. Unlike most species, these plants are almost like herbaceous perennials. I cut mine back to about two inches every other year. The first summer after the cut back, the shrubs with double flowers bear ones that are huge and heavy and need to be staked. The following year, there are more flowers that are smaller on stronger stems that can hold themselves up. I don’t stake the first-year plants; I corral them temporarily with a circle of wire fence around the clump, which holds the mass of flowering stems up and totally disappears under the leaves. The lace cap types do not usually need help, and one of mine is a very large variety with very dark green leaves called ‘Haas Hybrid’. It got the highest marks for its benefit to pollinators in recent comparison tests.
VARIEGATION
I know so many people who hate the green yucca plants. Familiarity is used especially in the expression familiarity breeds contempt. They are just too common, even though they have beautiful white flowers on tall stalks in early summer.
Another reason is that the foliage often gets ratty over the winter, even though the plants are super hardy. If you cut the ratty leaves off at the base, it will produce a flush of nice new growth. But it still will be a spiky elephant by the driveway. Look for variegated ‘Color Guard’ and ‘Golden Sword’—varieties with showy yellow and green tropical-looking leavs.
But these may also look a little worn after snow has bent the leaves. Cut off the battered foliage. The plant will push new handsome growth. If the yuccas flower, the parent plant will die, but by then, there will be offsets that will take its place. You can cut the plant that bloomed to the ground or below and toss on the compost pile.
GOLD
Japanese forest grass: Japanese forest grass or Hakone grass
The most familiar variety of this Asian plant, one of the few grasses that can take some shade, is Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’, which has green and yellow stripes. It is a very slow-growing plant and far from vigorous. But Margaret introduced me to one of the newer varieties—’All Gold’ (below left). It grows much faster, bigger and happier. I have the green species, as well, and a green and white one, but ‘All Gold’ is the winner. 
It’s a workhorse in a lot of places in the garden, unlike the earlier one that requires just the right moist situation.
MORE FOLIAGE COLORS
Gold is great, but I don’t want to forget the other colorful leafy plants, as well. I grow a red peach as a cutback. Prunus persica ‘Follis Rubris’ is a tree and it does bear fruit that are very pretty, dark red and fuzzy with white flesh, but not edible unless I cook up about fifty of them and make a pint of jam. It was originally grown to become the understock for desirable varieties that were grafted to. If red leaves showed up, the orchardist knew the rootstock was sprouting and had to be cut off before it overtook the desired varieties. But that very new growth is what I’m after. If I keep pruning it into a shrub, there are new luscious leaves all season.
There’s color from the fantastic hybrid smoke bush, Cotinus ‘Grace’ (far right), which is almost indescribable. Metallic blue-green with red new growth. These plants do flower, but I grow it for the foliage and therefore I also cut this one back, in this case, every other spring to about two feet.
TEXTURE, FERNS
I love texture and ferns provide that like no others. When that can be combined with unusual color, you get an extra benefit. Dryopteris erythrosora (far left)is the Autumn fern. It is bronze and orange in the spring and again in the fall, but turns green at this time of year. That might be the time I look even more to other ferns. As for colorful fern foliage, the Athyrium niponicum (near left) varieties, Japanese painted ferns, can’t be beat. They are mostly silver with a red central area running the length of the frond. There are several varieties including ‘Regal Red’, ‘Ghost’, which is nearly all silver and very vigorous, and one called ‘Godzilla’.
BIG LEAVES
Margaret and I both like big leaves. We grow many of the same kinds, for example, the California native Darmera peltata, which precedes its leaves in spring with delicate pink flowers atop tall stems. The leaves are large and wavy, and some years have great fall color.
A harder to grow native is Diphyllea cymosa (right)from North Carolina. It likes a moist situation. The leaves are similar to Darmera, but it has white flowers followed by very ornamental berries, if it is happy. I must admit, it can be a challenge. It is one of my three-strikes plants. I moved it three times, and now, at last, it seems to be settling in in its third home under a weeping tree near the canal with running water that cuts through the garden.
Astilboides:
Now, Margaret has something on me, and it is a bit of a mystery. She grows Astilboides, a large leaved plant that three strikes were not enough for me. I cannot grow this plant. I know she has it at the base of a hill where, most likely, moisture is always available. But I’ve tried that too. In this case, three strikes and it is out.
On the other hand are the Petasites. I must warn people that this plant likes to run. It is easy to edit. I just pull out the new plants around the edges of the large clump when the new leaves are just appearing in spring.
FROST TENDER BIG LEAVES
I’ve been talking about hardy herbaceous perennials, but there are some tender plants that I carry over in the sunroom and schlep out to the garden for summer color, and in many cases, size. Some of these are Alocasia. I have several. They are very big in pots here, but in the ground in tropical places, they can be huge—as big as Volkswagen Beetles. They have arrowhead-shaped leaves and come in colors. I have a very rare one called Alocasia wentii ‘Variegata’ (left) that I have had for over ten years, but I also have a new one that is available called ‘Dark Star’ I can highly recommend. It has green arrow leaves, makes offsets to remove and give to friends, and black stems that are the most stunning feature. Oh, except perhaps, that it is easy to grow. Unlike the other varieties, this one doesn’t suffer in the winter indoors. Its leaves don’t turn yellow, and it didn’t have insect problems, which these plants usually suffer from indoors.
Unlike most of their cousins, the Colocasia, some of which have black leaves, and Xanthosoma known for their chartreuse arrow-shaped foliage, most of the large Alocasia species do not go dormant in winter.
Whether it is texture, or form or scale or cooling white flowers, the lull of mid-summer can be a time when foliage and soothing color can take up the slack before late summer bloomers do.
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