This week, let's celebrate our Gold Medal-winning Olympic athletes with a deep dive into gold-coloured plants.
We've also included some golden flowers as well as foliage, for extra colour!
If an all-gold hedge is too much of a good thing for you, why not plant them into a mixed hedge of shades of green and gold?
We've also included some golden flowers as well as foliage, for extra colour!
Gold-leaved plants are unrivalled at brightening up a darker space in the garden. Variegated gold leaf plants can need extra light to fully develop their bright colour, but in Australia that's rarely an issue even in dappled shade. Gold-leaved plants are:
- perfect for planting alongside all green plants to brighten a space
- dramatic when contrasted with darker-leaved foliage plants
- ideal companions for bronze-copper leaved plants
Gold Leaved Shrubs
If you're looking to liven up your outdoor spaces year-round, then gold-leaf hedging is the answer. They add effortless colour in bold swathes.If an all-gold hedge is too much of a good thing for you, why not plant them into a mixed hedge of shades of green and gold?
Shown, clockwise from top left :
- You can't go past Coprosma Green and Gold if you're in a patriotic mood. Go Aussies! You can see how this beautiful foliage shrub gets its common name of mirror bush - those vibrant leaves are super-shiny.
- Our athletes may strike gold, and you can have your own Gold Strike with bold bushes of this leucadendron. It's related to many of our native shrubs like Banksia, and looks great in a mixed native border.
- Dypsis, the golden cane palm is fast-growing and small enough for almost every yard, giving you a golden tropical look, quick smart.
- Crotons have infinite variations of colour in their leaves, and leaves which can be big and broad or small and slender. We love Gold Dust, a slender leaved variety, emerald green sparkled with constellations of golden yellow.
Strong contender for the title of Most Gold Hedge has to be Duranta. You might know this frost-tender shrub for the flowering variety Geisha Girl, whose purple cascades of colour are a butterfly favourite.
Foliage colour varieties have been developed, notably Sheena's Gold, and Squatters Gold, which glow intensely in bright sunlight. Shown, clockwise from top left :
Foliage colour varieties have been developed, notably Sheena's Gold, and Squatters Gold, which glow intensely in bright sunlight. Shown, clockwise from top left :
- Golden Duranta likes full sun to bring out the colour of those leaves, and a regular clip to keep it neat. It will grow in shade, slightly less intensely yellow and with reduced flowering - which might be a plus for some.
- Lilly pillys - Syzygium and Acmena - are known for their beautiful leaf colour, and Hinterland Gold has to be one of the most handsome varieties. Evergreen glossy leaves change from lemon-lime through warm gold to copper and tan at the tips. Your hedges will glow from January to December!
- For a softer feeling, made for cottage gardens, Coleonema, known as golden diosma (much easier to say!) has small gold-lime leaves and an abundance of starry pink flowers - even at tubestock size. It's a perfect pairing to many natives such as tea tree, waxflower...
- ...and Melaleuca Revolution Gold. This beautiful form of native paperbark is grown for its vibrant feathery foliage. We can see these bushes shining brightly in our nursery paddocks even on an overcast winter day.
If you love the soft almost fluffy look of diosma and Revolution Gold above, you'll likely love the look of golden conifers too. You might not think of conifers when you think of golden plants - but these cold-hardy evergreens provide some of the best bright colour for a garden, year round. If you think they're only for TAS and the snowfields, our conifers are growing happily here on the Sunny Coast QLD.
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- Fantastically bright and amazingly low maintenance, juniper All Gold is a gorgeous all-weather groundcover that spreads in dense fans to form a weed-suppressing mat.
- If you only have room for a potted plant, or prefer a stepover hedge to a neighbour-blocking one, golden biota - Thuja orientalis Aurea nana to give it the full botanic name - is petitely perfect. The colour shifts from lime green and gold to deep honey through the seasons as temperatures change.
- Juniper Winter Gold , the golden pfitzer juniper, should be saved for the Winter Olympics, but who can resist those handsome layered branches, in gradients of forest green, apple green, gold, and lemon yellow, at any time of year?
- Reaching for the skies, fast-growing and tall, Castlewellan Gold cypress is a gently fresh alternative to green leylandii hedging for super-high screens and tall feature trees.
Gold Leaved Groundcovers
Planting a new hedge or tree can be a longer term commitment, although you will see the gold leaves even at tubestock size.
Meanwhile, you can add gorgeous golden winners to your borders with these faster-growing groundcovers and grasses.
Meanwhile, you can add gorgeous golden winners to your borders with these faster-growing groundcovers and grasses.
Shown, clockwise from top left :
- Our most popular Alternanthera is deep purple Little Ruby; but this fast-growing family of frost-tender foliage plants comes in a rainbow of colours. Like this freckled form, Green and Gold.
As well as the Australian team colours, you'll also spot pink, and peach and cream in there as the lovely variegation changes through the seasons and with the light.
- Vibrant and hardy, cupheas are always a favourite because they never seem to stop flowering! As well as the butterfly-friendly flowers, you'll get leaf colour too with the varieties Golden Ruby and Cuphea Aurea, the golden cuphea. The name gives a clue to gold-hunters : look for Aurea or Aureum in the plant's botanic name for golden colour. You can read more in our post Learn to Speak Plant - what plant names can tell us
- The leaves of Sedum golden moss lean to the yellow side of green, but it's the starry flowers that cover this little rockery succulent that give it its common name.
- Carex is a big family of grassy plants, resilient and reliable for a range of tough garden growing conditions. Evergold is one that's sought out for its good looks alone, each slender leaf striped with bright cream-gold.
There's heaps of choice for the golden yellow-loving gardener to plant and enjoy!
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- And there's heaps of yellow gazania to grow, but we really have to choose the variety Double Gold for an Olympic theme post! Gazanias love full sun, and will open their flowers up to catch maximum rays.
- Asteriscus gold coin isn't as familiar to gardeners as gazania, but that may change as we appreciate the generous bright flowers and silvery leaves on this rugged coastal sunlover.
- You might be more familiar with the native Hibbertia snakevine, also known as golden guinea. This fast-growing vine is great for ground coverage too; and after the golden flowers you'll get orange seeds.
- More subtle, but no less flowery, native
Goodenia is a family of fast-growing herbaceous perennials perfect for cottage gardens. This little one, Gold Cover, is low and compact, soft and gentle, for mass planting and patio pots.
If you're all about the natives, as well as cheering on the Green-and-Gold to Gold medals, then get ready to fill your garden with grevilleas!
There's so many gorgeous golden-flowered grevilleas to plant and enjoy, we even made a post all about them.
Many are looking at their best right now, in midwinter; covered in big flowers, and full of happy birds feeding on the sweet nectar. If you want to layer up the grevillea gold, we'll let you into a secret - Sandra Gordon has bright yellow-gold flowers - and her new foliage is golden too!
Shown, clockwise from top left :
- Grevillea Golden Lyre needs a frost-free climate, where it will spread out side in cascading layers of golden colour, the better to display its huge lime-gold flowers.
- Gold Rush is much easier to find room for; compact and cosy, it gives you bright gold flowers in a small size.
- Canterbury Gold is a gentle buttery hue; a perfect match for the ixora shown below, and a preferred pitstop for hungry honeyeaters too.
- Winpara Gold pairs custard gold with berry pink in its rounded firework flowers - very tasty!
For tropical climates, and tropical looks in a colder climate, gold is the go. So much choice, so much cheerful colour! Golden flowers make the sun shine in your garden whatever the weather is doing.
Shown, clockwise from top left :
- Sweetly scented gardenias are loved for their intense fragrance, their glossy evergreen foliage, their beautiful white flowers. Golden Magic opens white in bud, then deepens into rich honey tones as the flowers age.
- Butterfly-favourite buddleia usually blooms in pink, purple, white; this unusual Golden Glow brings a different dimension - and lures in the pollinators too.
- Ixora are classic shrubs for tropical gardens, with big bold domed clusters of flowers in fruity shades. Gold Malay and Pirate's Gold are like the richest butter, a soft gentle gold that harmonises with a wide range of colours.
- Herbaceous day lily Stella D'Oro - Italian for golden star - pops open those bright buds when the sun shines. Each flower might not last for long - that's why it's called day lily - but crikey it produces a lot of them.
Your gold garden ambitions can grow as tall as you want them to - not quite to infinity, but definitely into the sky. Golden flowered trees look spectacular against a blue sky; guaranteed to put a big smile on your face!Shown, clockwise from top left :
- Tabebuia golden trumpet tree needs a frost-free climate to thrive in. After rains, its bare branches are covered in clusters of flowers, sounding a loud herald to the arrival of spring.
- For colder climates, plant fantastic frost-hardy forsythia. Lynwood's Gold is one of the earliest shrubs to flower, often in full bloom with snow on the petals. After the show - and what a show! - lime green leaves emerge and the shrub becomes a gentle backdrop for summer flowers - until next winter.
- Native frangipani draws in the nectar-feeding birds in spring with starry golden-cream flowers; but not everyone has space for this rainforest tree, slender though it is.
Dwarf version Golden Nugget is less than a metre around, with the same sweet golden flowers - so it fits into every garden space. - Native rainforest tree golden penda is a popular street tree in southern Queensland - and local lorikeets love them too!
Fairhill Gold is the tallest we sell, a perfect size for most suburban gardens; and if you've only got room for a little one, then copper-leaved Little Goldie is happy in a pot on the patio.
So you see, to give your garden bright bursts of leaf colour, and happy uplifting flower colour, you should definitely give gold plants a guernsey. They enliven an all-green foliage planting, are boldly dramatic when paired with darker-leaved plants, and harmonise beautifully with copper and bronze foliages. Gold plants - like Aussies - are winners!
