Garden Talk: Brown Is A Color Too

Air Date:
Heard On The Larry Meiller Show
Till Westermayer (CC-BY-SA-2.0)

The colors of summer may have disappeared, but it’s easy to forget that brown is a color too. Larry Meiller finds out how to keep gardens looking beautiful even through winter.

Featured in this Show

  • Garden Director: Embrace The Shades Of Brown

    The green buds of spring are gone. The flowerings of summer have passed. At this point in the season, the garden can monochromatic.

    But Ben Futa encourages people to remember that brown is a color too.

    Futa is the new Garden Director of Allen Centennial Gardens, the public garden and living classroom of the University of Wisconsin-Madison horticulture department.

    “When you begin to look at brown as a color it no longer is just brown, it becomes sand and taupe and sepia and silver and terra cotta and black,” Futa said. “When you can begin to see those very late seasoned colors in the garden, there’s amazing possibilities that open up.”

    One benefit of embracing browns is the possibility of plants spreading, Futa said. If a plant has a seedpod that birds are attracted to, then that creates a mechanism for the seed to spread.

    “Not only can you attract birds to your landscape by leaving up the seed heads of things like Echinacea, but it also provides a mechanism for that Echinacea to spread over the winter,” Futa said.

    And despite conventional American gardening wisdom, Futa said plants were meant to remain in their own debris. While many gardeners cut everything down and remove debris in October and November, Futa said that in the natural world, there is no timetable that removes plant material.

    “These plants first of all are used to growing in their own debris. They’re used to having these stalks up through snow and winter and frost,” Futa said.

    The additional debris also provides insulation to the plant crown, especially if it’s a really hard winter.

    As for the aesthetic possibilities of a brown garden, Futa contends that it’s a sight to be seen.

    “It’s an amazing thing to walk out in the morning and see all of these seed heads and forms just encrusted with frost. It’s a really stunning sight to see and just adds a new dimension to your garden,” he said.

    Plus, it takes away the clean-up aspect of the season, he said, and lets Mother Nature do the work.

Episode Credits

  • Larry Meiller Host
  • Cheyenne Lentz Producer
  • Ben Futa Guest

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