The planning season is still young. Hopefully by April we can just laugh off your indiscretion and these visions of good taste and restraint. January and February are still yet to come and grey is not a color to get you through their dreariness.

A combo of scarlet and pink warms the soul even if it puckers the mouth of good taste.

I've been favoring muted colors for a few years now --- maybe I'm older than you? Grey hair doesn't run in my family and ancient though I am, my hair is still mostly dark so that excuse won't fly.

A bit of color goes a long way (often like a siren blaring) among the muted & I've never made a secret about how much I love silver and blue foliage. I've got a strip I've been working on that I call the silver garden. I was inspired by a single picture I saw online when looking for different kinds of artemisia, unfortunately the place that had so many kinds, some I'd never heard of, was out of a lot of the ones I'd never heard of and then there is my tendency to wish for but never actually place the order.

I need some umbels. I have zero umbels. I was thinking of this oversight the other day and I've started looking for some native umbels. Suggestions? I think you once mentioned that you have a weakness for them or maybe it was just a lot of them or maybe just a weakness for planting seeds of any type. Anyway, when I thought of needing umbels, you came to my mind.

TxR2, I grow Daucosma laciniata , a QAL look a like, but the black American swallowtails love it and Texas Prairie Parsley which makes a pale yellow umbel. Their is a related Prairie Parsley that grows up your way, TX. I think the umbels are bigger on the Texas variation. But I am sure Camp has a million more to suggest. I have also grown some non natives that skips my Random access memory

Oooh perhaps the Cali native Rangers Buttons (not attempting the Latin spelling again)...or any number of angelicas - a.arguta is the most reliably perennial...or cryptotaenia...or patrinia gibbosa...or zizia aurea for a gold...or even just dip your toe in the water with the little orlaya or ammi. I recall Mara get quite thrilled about finding some polytaenia foliage. They are truly fabulous with grasses. Where I garden in the woods, we have 22 out of 33 natives...so it is as well that I love them (a lot). I have some Madeira parsley for Mara (melanoselinum)...and there are many Mediterranean types - molospermum, sesseli, selinum etc.etc.) and some famous poisons - hemlocks etc.) If you grow from seed, it needs to be this season - I can bung some ammi in with centaurea (email me). The labiates (mints) are the next most common family.

Silver gardens - there was a famous nursery in the UK which grew nothing else - will look for a link.

Ah Katob, I had a bit of a thing with bright orange geums and luridly pink salvias...so yep, I don't expect this ethereal stage to survive winterval.

Zizia Aurea is native to Oklahoma, more the eastern parts.Yellow meadow parsley AKA Thaspium trifoliatum is also native to Eastern Oklahoma. I grow Ammi magus, or I should say, it grows itself in some of my better soiled areas.

I love silver is nice because its a good bright neutral in what would otherwise too busy because its a visual rest for the eyes the same way groups of grasses and many other foliage plants are. Silver makes a particularly nice foil for other plants to play against and it creates that muted desert look I'm so partial to.

Adding orange is a challenge. I was searching for orange flowers (natives) some time back and realized orange flowers are few and far between compared to red, white, yellow or blues/purple and many I found were not cold hardy enough for zone 7. Of course, that made me want orange even more. I've settled mostly with Lantana but thats so obvious along with the single flower type of orange zinnia's. If I remember right, there is an orange type of Flame Acanthus but I've never run across a source. I bet it could be found in Texas.

If you want orange flowers + silver foliage on one plant--- Buddleia marrubiifolia which is native to the Southern Trans-Pecos Mexico . I love those but doubt it would be hardy here. I think this is a butterfly bush that even an English gardener would like considering how invasive the commonly sold kinds are there.

Umbel stuff---Mara, you sent me seeds of Texas Parsley a while back, they are still in the package because to be honest, I snubbed it when you were falling in love with it. Now I'm taking a second look. I just dug them out of one of my messy, disorganized seed boxes.

Being even more honest, I'm frankly scared of any European plants in the carrot or parsley family.

This will come as no surprise but, true to form and being stuck in a groove, I immediately zeroed in on the SW buckwheats, especially Eriogonum corymbosum (Buckwheatbrush). Maybe its time to attempt another probable failure?

I have a single plant of wild white yarrow I got from a local field growing a particularly cruddy spot in mostly dry shade that I deadhead. Does that count as an umbel? Should I dare let it naturalize? I think I will transplant some up front and see how it does, it is pretty dry up there.

I like the silver because they emphasize and extend the light/dark relationships. I love the artemisia that is around my dark green Agave and a great play on the dark shadows under the trees of high summer.

The seeds of Texas Prairie Parsley need a couple of years of hardening, I think. I never could get them to sprout in my 4"ers but they have started to come up in the grassy areas on their own. When I move them , they mostly die .