Leafy plants
often provide more than just an extra touch of green to the flower garden.
Even in a flower garden, it's possible to have too much of a good thing. Creating contrast by tucking leafy garden plants among extended areas of color not only breaks up the monotony but also creates visual balance. Tall green leafy plants are easy on the eyes, add depth and provide a backdrop for flowering plants by creating natural boundaries between them.
Japanese Aralia
One of the few leafy plants that do well in deep shade, Japanese Aralia (Fatsia Japonica) grows to 10 feet, producing large palmate, shiny, green leaves edged in yellow or white. The plant is hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture zones 8 to 10 and can be grown as a houseplant in colder climates. This spreading evergreen is deer-resistant and can tolerate hot and humid conditions. It produces clusters of tiny white flowers in the fall, followed by black fruit. It grows in a pH range of 5.5 to 8, and prefers a sandy, well-drained soil.
Hostas
While hostas produce scapes of small flowers in late summer, they are grown primarily for their foliage. These shade-tolerant plants come in a variety of colors, from deep, solid greens to variegated combinations of green, white, gold and blue. They are low-maintenance and easily obtained from mail-order catalogs, nurseries and garden centers. Reaching maturity within four to eight years, hostas do best in morning sun and afternoon shade, states the Ohio State University Extension. The white, yellow and gold varieties can tolerate more sunlight, while the blue-leaf varieties do best with more shade.
Ferns
Ferns develop no flowers at all, and reproduce by means of spores produced on the undersides of the leaves and carried by the wind to form new plants. Ferns love deep shade and moist soil, but cannot tolerate damaging winds. Some species of ferns form colonies by sending their rhizomes out beneath the soil, resulting in a natural grouping that provides contrast for low-growing flowering plants. These include the ostrich feather fern, the American maidenhair fern and the evergreen maidenhair fern.
Elephant Ear
Elephant Ear (Colocasia esculenta) is a spectacular foliage plant that produces heart-shaped leaves on 2 to 3-foot stalks. Its leaves can be purplish-black, green or variegated. The large tubers can go into the ground once the danger of all frost has past in northern climates, and the plants do best in partial shade in moist soil. Plants should be cut back to a height of 2 to 4 inches after the first light frost, and the bulbs dug up and stored for the winter. In areas where the growing season is short, the bulbs may not have time to store enough food to sustain them during winter storage and sometimes do not survive.
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