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So, I was outside Tuesday, after our 55th thunderstorm in five days to see how my annuals were faring as they near the end of their summer life.
All summer, I have griped in this column about how tough it’s been for my annuals this summer. I won’t go into that again, but I am happy to report my 18 polka dot plants are doing just fine, thank you.
I can just imagine what readers are thinking – Huh? A polka dot? Much less 18 and in a garden? Should I care? And so on. Well, I hope you care enough to try your own next year. Here is the scoop:
Hypoestes phyllostachya is its botanical name and until recently was used as a novel houseplant because of the pink dots on its small, dark green foliage. Sometimes, even the stems, making it 15 inches high, were colored. But it developed a bad rap for growing a bit lanky and tipsy indoors, the cause of which was probably not enough filtered light. It is okay with some direct sun. It is native to Madagascar where it is a perennial, leafy shrub. It grows so well in Australia that it is considered a weed.
No worries. It will not behave as a weed here.
Mine have reached about 12 inches high and 8 inches wide and are tucked among croton plants and my good friend, white New Guinea impatiens. The location is near the corner of my garage in a small section that was home for two boring ferns for too long.
It was one of those areas most landscapes have – small enough to easily ignore and not big enough to scream “plant me, please!” Last fall, I removed the ferns with the help of Round-Up and intense digging as ferns have quite the fibrous root system.
This is one of the small number of annuals that are primarily grown for foliage, rather than the flower. I’m thinking here of coleus, croton, elephant ear, caladium, dusty miller, potato vine, flowering kale, purple fountain grass and a few others. Each does flower but the blossoms are insignificant compared to the shape, size and coloration of the foliage.
Back to polka dot. It grows well in full light, but not full sun. Filtered light is fine; morning light is ideal – so really lots of spots to enjoy throughout the landscape. It would be a good mixer plant in a small-medium container but again, no constant sun. If a geranium or petunia or marigold is happy, polka dot will not be.
Its leaf is a basic glossy dark green and coloration depends on varieties, for example:
‘Camina’ has red-spotted leaves while ‘Confetti’ has spots of white, burgundy, red, rose or pink and ‘Pink Brocade’ has mostly mottled pink spots. The ‘Splash’ series – splotches of pink, red or white.
What I really, really like about this plant is that it is wildly colorful but not overwhelming. It shares space with other plants nicely and blends in with virtually any other annual growing next or near to it – if each of the group shares the same need for sunshine. It behaves a lot like dusty miller and its greyish, somewhat serrated foliage. I’d choose it in a heartbeat over coleus. If you consider potato vine, a fast and raucous grower, then polka dot has a relaxing, “get ‘er done” attitude to its growing habits.
Ed Hutchison writes a weekly gardening column for the Midland Daily News.
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