Managing the scale of your foliage can give your landscapes surprising ways to catch the eye.

The longest journey may indeed begin with a single step, but the origin story of one of my formative gardening explorations started instead like this:

The largest-leaf journey began with a single left turn into the parking area of a botanical garden, in response to a roadside sign irresistibly printed with “plant sale” and an arrow.

Two perennials on offer that decades-ago afternoon at the Mary Flagler Cary Arboretum in Millbrook, N.Y. (now the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies) were Rodgersia and Astilboides, which I would later discover are botanical cousins in the Saxifrage family. To a novice puzzling out the beginnings of a garden at her weekend home 40 minutes up the road, they were total strangers — but seductive ones.

Even as young plants, and restrained from full self-expression by the confines of nursery pots, they seemed different in scale from the usual suspects — their leaf stalks thicker and sturdier, as if they had ambitious future plans. From the moment I set them in the ground, and watched them launch toward their full potential — big, bigger, biggest — an addiction to plants with outsize foliage was officially imprinted in me.

The Rodgersia is R. podophylla, a native of stream banks and moist woodlands in Japan and Korea, and all the written wisdoms recommend it for consistently moist to wet soils. But with a beginner’s arrogance I hadn’t researched its provenance or preferences before I placed my latest treasure beneath a massive, century-plus-old, triple-trunked conifer where it would have to compete for available moisture. Unflinchingly, it has prospered.

Each 3-foot-tall, 2½-foot-wide leaf is made up of five leaflets that have an almost quilted texture, and jagged edges, too. As if that were not embellishment enough, in late May it has white flowers reminiscent of Astilbe (another Saxifrage), then its leaves go bronzy-gold in the fall.

The foliage of my adopted Astilboides tabularis (a Chinese species whose Latin name used to be Rodgersia tabularis) is similar in expanse and height as the Rodgersia’s, and it has vaguely Astilbe-like blooms, too. Astilboides’ leaves are circular, though, with undulating, slightly lobed edges, and are also what’s called peltate: Each one is held on a petiole, or leaf stalk, that attaches to the center of the leaf’s underside like an umbrella’s shaft.

The Latin name of Darmera peltata, a later acquisition native to northwestern California and southwest Oregon, gives away that its foliage is held in the same manner, as does its common name, umbrella plant. Though the main show is the rounded foliage with its toothed edges — each leaf is about 18 inches across and held nearly four feet high — its opening act startled me the first full year I grew it. As if from nowhere, before the leaves emerged, rounded clusters of tiny pink-and-white flowers appeared, held high on stout stems. I’d sought it for the power of the leaves alone.

A Taste of the Tropics

Bold leaves didn’t evolve for a gardener’s visual delight, but rather as adaptations to the habitats where each species’ history began. In lowlight environments, for instance, more surface can capture precious light to conduct photosynthesis, but in some locations it comes with risks, such as exposure to extremes of heat and cold. No surprise that the trait is less risky for plants in the warmth of the tropics, where there is also ample moisture, and we gardeners covet many of those, too.

Whether of tropical or temperate origin, each brings a faux-tropical feel to my Northern garden. I can get my habit satisfied with actual tropicals, of course, and I stash crates of rhizomes of my favorite canna, Canna Musifolia, in the cellar each winter to replant in spring. Its leaves are big enough to be mistaken for a banana’s, and writing that makes me wonder why I haven’t planted a hardy Japanese banana (Musa basjoo), which is said to survive Zone 5 if mulched heavily.

Since this is not the tropics, though, maybe all large-leaved plants recommended for temperate gardens should come with a warning, especially as our springs get crazier weather-wise. There is nothing sadder than a stand of giant foliage felled by a late freeze — or worse, a hailstorm. A late frost plasters those Rodgersia stems to the ground, and its effect on Astilboides — turning each leaf into a puckered, bi-colored balloon of sorts — would be almost comical, if not so heartbreaking.

Hazards notwithstanding, I wouldn’t be without all these ample leaves (well, except when forces bigger than myself intervene and erase their beauty).

Bold reads from a distance, and not just outside, where such plants can be sited to catch the eye and draw you across the garden. Indoors, I cannot see every Tiarella or Asarum leaf from my upstairs windows, but looking out and down on these big guys, their size XL foliar mosaics read just fine; no binoculars required.

From everyday things like the biggest hostas, or a massive stand of garden rhubarb (Rheum x hybridum), to unusual natives like the umbrella leaf (Diphylleia cymosa), a barberry family relative from the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Southern Appalachians: There is so far only one big leaf I wish I’d never met, that of butterbur (Petasites hybridus), which I saw at another nearby botanical garden and purchased long ago. Do not plant, period; an invasive thug.

A gentler side note on rhubarb: The culinary type’s stature is reduced after a mid-spring harvest; maybe grow the ornamental Chinese rhubarb (R. palmatum), too, whose leaves are more textural and flowers are pink to red, not white.

Ligularia is another genus with the scale of foliage I like, but most never lasted for me until one fairly recent oddball, L. japonica, with its massive, finely dissected leaves. My only hesitation: It self-sows, so its yellow flowers need deadheading.

Another study in texture: I live with lots of the native ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris), whose impressive, otherworldly fronds ascend to almost six feet in spots here where the soil stays evenly moist, and four feet elsewhere.

Making Room for a Big-Leaf Magnolia

Don’t all yell at once: I encourage pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) to develop to its fullest stature (about six feet and shrubby for me) in a couple of spots in the garden each year from the many where it chooses to self sow. It’s not a weed, despite the common name; it’s a powerful native whose flower sustain pollinators, and birds and other animals relish its fall fruit. If the 16-inch-long leaves that wave from its reddish stems were not enough, those berries are gorgeous, too.

What is a celebration of large-leaved plants without the big-leaf magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla), a nurseryman friend asked as a dare three springs ago, knowing that one would absolutely go into the ground shortly thereafter.

The single-trunked tree has almost oblong-shaped leaves that can get up to a foot wide and three feet long. They are apparently the largest simple leaves (ones whose blade is all one piece, unlike a compound leaf of smaller leaflets) of all native North American trees, with giant flowers, too, from 8 to 14 inches across.

The big-leaf magnolia is a Southeastern native, but rare in the wild, found only in scattered pockets.

And now, to my burgeoning delight, at least one individual is also found right here.

출처: New York Times