Fabulous Foliage

"The key to creating a successful landscape is blending different shapes and sizes of leaves, while highlighting specific colors," says Otto. One of the biggest advantages of using plants for their foliage is that the show lasts for months on end. While most blooms come and go, many of the leaves on these plants provide interest in the garden all season long.

To propagate, take a cutting about four inches in length--here, coleus--and clear the bottom set of leaves at the nodes where roots will develop. Use a light airy potting soil mix, insert the cutting and keep it watered. It grows indoors like a houseplant. Just remember that when the roots are beginning to develop it helps to put a bag over the top of the growing container. This creates a greenhouse of sorts which helps to keep the humidity high around the cuttings.

Suggested plants:

• Coleus (figure B)
  
• Knotweed (Persicaria)
  
• Red dragon persicaria (Persicaria microcephala 'Red Dragon')
  
• Tropical smokebush or red spurge (Euphorbia cotinifolia)
  
• Blue-eyed smokebush (Conospermum brownii)
  
• Canna 'Constitution'
  
• Elephant ear (Colocasia, Alocasia and Xanthosoma)
  
• Purple-leaf sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum 'Pele's Smoke')
  
• Caladium
  
• Joyweed (Alternanthera 'Purple Knight')
  
• Plectranthus forsteri 'Green on Green'
  
• Japanese blood grass (Imperata cylindrica 'Rubra')
  
• Bougainvillea
  
• Flowering maple (Abutilon x hybridum)
  
• Artillery plant (Pilea microphylla)
  
• Caricature plant (Graptophyllum pictum 'Chocolate')
  
• Purple-leaf oxalis (Oxalis regnellii 'Atropurpurea')