brown 9

I frequently forget that grey-brown is also brown, and is one of the variations of brown that can be a useful design element. It is unusual to see this color, compared to all the biscuit browns and light tans. Although this color makes me think of dead branches bleached by the sun, it is not necessarily so, and even if so, the "dead-bleached-branches" look is considered quaint here in the southwest. I've seen gardens decorated specifically with bleached branches, rock, gravel, and nary a green plant in sight. Of course, in interior design, people intentionally bleach wood for effect. Unpainted wood doors eventually turn this color, and it is especially common to see this in Santa Fe.

This color comes not from a dead plant, but from the branches of the living but dormant Apache plume shrub (Fallugia paradoxa). Interestingly, the year-old twigs and stems are very pale, an off-white really (that almost perfectly matches the color of my interior paint called "balsa"). I've been tempted to prune my shrubs to the ground each spring to capitalize on this, just like a red-twig dogwood (Cornus stolonifera), or the eerie white stems of the ghost bramble (Rubus cockburnianus or Rubus thibetanus). After a year, the Fallugia branches turn black.

The silver-grey stems below come from a the local three-leaf sumac (Rhus trilobata) and forms a nice contrast against the warm brown of the boulder. Funny, but my three-leaf sumacs don't turn this color. Mine, which arrived as purchased plants, have brown so dark as to be nearly black, from base to tip. Maybe as the plant gets older. Or maybe I'll have to collect some seeds.