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By Zoe Nonemaker, Freelance Writer


Mauve pink bloom of Echinacea pupurea

My garden journal entries between August 31 - September 13, 2000 tell a sad tale of devastation. Temperatures steadily rise from 108 degrees to the highest readings at Nonesuch, 120 degrees in the sun on September 4 and 5. Record red ozone alerts posted each day. Warning: Stay indoors. Hallelujah for my blooming cannas, crinums and coneflowers.

These three Cs, cannas, crinums and coneflowers, introduce my list of cool plants. To some, they may seem common and old-fashioned. To me, it is the whole point. Tried-and-true naturalized Texas perennials, such as cannas, will tough it out in our changing warmer climate swings to return with vigor this year and next.

What is old is new again. In Old House Gardens catalog from Ann Arbor, Michigan, two full pages are devoted to cannas on tall and short stalks with nearly every color of bloom. Cannas and other tropical roots and bulbs are enjoying a surge of interest because of the wide variety of foliage colors and exotic variegations now available. Although cannas are native to the Americas, they have been prized and bred in Europe, especially France, since late the 1500s.

'Red King Humbert,' was introduced in 1902, but its variegated burgundy and green leaves make it a new rage. I grow this 6 to 8 foot canna in the ground, full sun, as well as in large pots with afternoon shade. Humbert's flame red blooms and bronze leaves against the putty color of my house is a look that pleases me. Cannas in the ground bloom better, require less water, and grow taller than the ones in pots. I cut old stalks and foliage back to the soil and feed them heavily in February. Then stand back and watch them like Jack and his beanstalk.

My friend and nurseryman Don Champion laughs when I mention growing cannas. He says, "Cannas are so easy. If you fail with cannas, you might as well give up gardening." Some of my friends can't get rid of their cannas, no matter how often they mow them. However, in other gardening circles, the canna is considered exotic, not common.


White Salvia greggii

Crinum lily bulbs are so common and care free in Texas, that they take root in ditches of questionable content. My double row of crinums blooms in full sun between linear crapemyrtle trees. They get only rainwater and fertilizer at nature's whims. Milk and wine variety, Crinum sp., is considered an heirloom now, and indeed, this bulb has been in our area since 1886, along with its white counterpart, 'Album.'

'Ellen Bosanquet' makes a third color for a crinum palette with its wine-red, bell-shaped flowers. Since 1930, it has appeared in southern gardens. These members of the amaryllis family are trendy now and command prices between $20 and $45, per bulb, in some catalogs. Felder Rushing cannot say enough good things about them. His highest recommendation is in Passalong Plants. "None have ever died."

Last spring, I created a small pink and yellow garden to include only shades and combinations of the two colors. This spring, I assessed my choices and they tallied well. Echinacea purpurea, purple coneflowers, have fit in and settled down to be cool plants for hot times. The big mauve-pink petals on coneflowers are lasting. I feed them in March, June and September. From one small clump, now eight clumps of toughened, hardy plants thrive around the base of a birdbath. There is a white variety, but for me it has been unsatisfactory in growth and bloom. My pink and yellow oasis attracts visiting beneficial insects such as American painted lady and pipe vine swallowtail butterflies.

Lantana and salvia collections follow the three Cs on my cool list because they respond without much attention from me. In February they get a yearly hard pruning, followed by a dose of triple super-phosphate, then only some water, now and then.

Although these plants stopped blooming during the hottest days last year, they passed the acid test to put on new blooms and performed until frost. The yellow, pink and yellow, and lavender lantanas are at their peak of performance once again.

My salvia collection includes light and dark pinks of greggii, microphylla, blepharophylla and leucantha species. Salvia leucantha's long, velvety amethyst bloom spikes, with their white flags waving at insects, never wilted and the gray-green foliage never shriveled last summer. I call that a cool plant.

All gardeners like to brag and I am no exception. Bulbine flavescens is my newest cool plant. I first saw it growing at The Arbor Gate nursery, Tomball, Texas. The small yellow flowers cluster in cones at the top of tall stems above tufts of fleshy leaves. Bulbine is a native lily from South Africa and is not widely known or grown in Texas. I chose to put bulbine in pots and found that it blooms almost year-round; only a light freeze slowed it down. This lily requires little care. If Bulbine flavescens proves as cool and carefree as the three Cs, every Texas gardener can relax in a hammock during July and August.


Yellow lantana visited by American painted butterfly