TOW bulbs with good foliage
320083817243-0001@t-online.de (Fri, 28 May 2004 14:46:53 PDT)

Dear All

There are three favourite plants of mine that have very beautiful foliage.

Sinningia speciosa 'Regina' Is a naturally occuring variant of Sinningia
speciosa and has dark green velvety leaves with white veins. It forms a fairly
large regular rosette and in summer will flower with purply foxglove like
flowers well above the foliage but is extremely ornamental just as a foliage
plant. It has a short dormancy in winter and forms a big potato like tuber. It
looks very noble and I find it aptly named.
Many other gesneriads have beautiful foliage like Rechsteineria leucotricha
with striking pure silver white leaves and many Kohlerias often totally covered
in reddish or brownish hairs.

Dahlia imperialis, unfortunately always a foliage plant here in Germany because
it is a short day bloomer and will be cut down by frost before it flowers.
(apparently there is a summer flowering form in cultivation in Argentina but I
did not manage to get hold of it) But WHAT foliage! It forms a thick bamboo
like trunk many metres tall and has very large bi- or tripinnate leaves. It is
an excellent background plant in a tropical border or in a (very large)
container. It grows with a frightening pace when will watered and fed. It is a
spectacular plant in bloom in frost free gardens.

Zantedeschia aethiopica. Since childhood I love this plant! There are so many
forms: some have leaves that are very green, others have a greyish or bluish
tinge some leaves are bigger and some slender and very arrow-shaped. Some
plants are dwarfer and some really big. There is a var. gigantea. The puristic
flower is very beautiful, too but especially the emerging foliage after summer
dormancy is most beautiful in its lushness.

greetings from a long and very cold spring in Germany, Uli