With Great Foliage You Don't Need Flowers for Color

My deck plantings are really enjoying the hot temps. I think they grow at least six inches a day! I am always eager for them to begin looking decent as we enjoy using the deck for entertaining.  Twice since Saturday we have enjoyed drinks on the deck before bringing our guests inside for a grilled dinner (we don't really like to eat outside--we don't find bugs in food very appetizing). 

I love to plant my containers for foliage interest . I enjoy the colorful foliage just as much as the flowers.  Maybe even more so--I don't have to deadhead the foliage. :)   Right now my deck is a riot of color with only one flower in bloom.  Just look at the colors and textures in these planters of coleus, dahlia, elephant ears, callas, and cannas.

This Persian Palm Elephant Ears has great texture with its deeply veined leaves.  It is suppose to get humongous--7 ft tall with 3 feet wide leaves.  This one is two years old and never gets much larger than this. 

Canna leaves with swathes of brown, white spotted calla leaves, and feathery dahlia foliage all combine to add interest to this grouping.

 There is a coleus in every color family.  I prefer those with a more solid color as I think it really gives a big punch of contrast to plain old green foliage.

I am really into the rusty red varieties, like this new Proven Winner Colorblaze 'Keystone Kopper'. It gets up to 3 ft tall and can grow in the sun.  It's growing with another Elephant Ears (no ideas what variety).

Sometimes I like the coleus to be in the same color family like this 'Sedona' coleus (also PW Colorblaze series) with the striped Tropicanna leaves.  'Sedona' looks very similar to 'Keystone Kopper'.

The only flower I have in bloom right now are these yellow callas. 

My friend who stopped by yesterday for dinner was quite intrigued by them. She is not a gardener, but she asked where she could find one of these plants. I got these from my MIL, who got them from her mother at least 50 years ago.  After all these years, nobody remembers what variety this one is. So the only place she could get these is from me. Luckily I had a small container or two of extras that I planted up a few weeks ago.  I was happy to be able to give her one. I hope it blooms for her this year. I told her she had to overwinter it. She looked baffled, then said, "Oh (she thought for a moment).  How about if I just bring it back to you this fall?"  LOL.

I told her that works for me. I would be happy to save it for her.