I used to think there was no earthly use for perilla (Perilla frutescens). \u00a0No garden since the beginning of time has ever had just one plant. \u00a0True to its mint family heritage, perilla spreads and spreads and spreads.<\/p>\n
Of course, it is quite decorative, with its purple-black ruffled leaves, but some of the similarly colored coleus varieties are better mannered. \u00a0Perilla also has nice pink flower spikes late in the season, but you can get the same color value from Japanese anemones.<\/p>\n
So what is perilla good for?<\/p>\n
Perilla is great camouflage for the ugly stalks of tall asters. \u00a0\u2018Alma Potschke\u2019 is a great example, though far from the only one. \u00a0Even with repeated spring and early summer pruning, \u2018Alma\u2019 grows three or four feet tall. \u00a0The top third of the plants are gorgeous; the bottom two thirds are leafless and ugly. \u00a0Letting perilla grow up in front of tall asters like \u2018Alma\u2019 is a public service.<\/p>\n
If you are stuck with perilla, you might as well make an aesthetic virtue of a necessity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I used to think there was no earthly use for perilla (Perilla frutescens). \u00a0No garden since the beginning of time has ever had just one plant. \u00a0True to its mint family heritage, perilla spreads and spreads and spreads. Of course, it is quite decorative, with its purple-black ruffled leaves, but some of the similarly colored … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[265,264,266,267,208,263,268,269],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-summer","tag-alma-potschke","tag-asters","tag-companion-planting","tag-fall-gardening","tag-late-summer-gardening","tag-mint-family","tag-perilla","tag-perilla-frutescens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":530,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions\/530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}