Texture in the Fall Garden

Nasella tenuissima, Pittosporum Creme de Mint
and mossy fountain

It has slowly been dawning on me all summer that texture is supplanting color as a more interesting element in my garden.    Maybe it's becoming apparent now because in the midst of a very slow, gentle Southern California autumn, there is no fall color, not really, and it wasn't that long ago that I was awash in color at this time of year.   

Every once in a while, usually from the freeway, I'll glimpse what might be a deciduous tree with a shimmer of fall color.  Not often, though.  The blueberries that I feel compelled to grow in our alkaline soil have vivid red tips.   I'm not sure if this is fall color or their silent expression of reproach at being planting down here where they don't really belong.

Norway Maple leaves blanket
the ground

Either way, this small shaft of color in no way compares to the stunning oranges, reds and yellows which would fill the sky overhead and eventually blanket the ground at my former home on Long Island, New York.  





So maybe this is why I am lately noticing subtle and not so subtle texture contrasts all over my garden; summer flowers are mostly gone and as I search for some change to signal the passing season I find texture in lieu of fall color.

From this angle, I admire the texture of wispy Coleonema beside chunky Coleus lanuginosa beside a splash of Liriope beside old fashioned Cast Iron Plant. Each calmly asserting their form, much more gently than would a Sumac or Dogwood as their emerald chlorophyll slowly ebbs away.
It's really in the fall that the garden starts to come alive in California.  As the weather cools and the rains start to sprinkle or pour all the accumulated salts are washed from the soil and the plants are renewed. 

A contrast of scale; my newly beloved (as I have set up colonies all over my garden!) Coleus lanuginosa (really a Plectranthus) with Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve' sans the mauve.

The Coleus (I know...for goodness sake, enough with the Coleus!) with our native groundcover Coyote Mint 'Pigeon Point' with the ever-present and armageddon-proof Rhaphiolepis 'Clara'.

My hope is that the Coyote Bush (Baccharis pilularis) is ornery enough (it is a clay tolerant, dry summer loving California native after all) to compete with the polite, but relentless Coleus.  I'd like it to weave its way through the coleus as a dainty contrast to the succulent, waxy leaves.

And to end the way I began with a contrast of stone against  plant:  Aztec man, purchased at a Long Island antique market, and very content to be relocated to the West Coast, nestled in a bed of Dianthus 'Ichmery'
(Annies Annuals in Richmond, CA.)