Archive for the Shade Perennials Category

Lamium ‘Purple Dragon’: Foliage Interest for Shade Gardens

  Looking for some great foliage interest in your shade or filtered sun that isn't hostas or painted ferns?  How about Lamium 'Purple Dragon?'  It's a real survivor, thriving across six zones (3-8), and it produces big, beautiful clusters of purple flowers for many weeks.  The eye-catching silvery-white leaves shade quickly to dark green around [...]


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Mikinori Ogisu: The Indiana Jones of Botany

I was browsing through our catalog, as I sometimes do when I can't think of anything else to write about. I just find a pretty plant and then talk about how pretty it is. I know it's boring, and I apologize, but they really are very pretty. This time was different. It wasn't the picture [...]


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A Few Fantastic Leaves for Part Shade

Looking for some great foliage interest in your shade or filtered sun that isn't hostas or painted ferns?  How about Lamium 'Purple Dragon?'  It's a real survivor, thriving across six zones (3-8), and it produces big, beautiful clusters of purple flowers for many weeks.  The eye-catching silvery-white leaves shade quickly to dark green around the [...]


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New Hostas for a Richer Garden

The popularity of most plants comes and goes and comes again as time goes on.  Some, though, are always in demand.  Hostas are one type of plant that we're always on the lookout for.  A great Hosta can make as much difference to the look and feel of your garden as any other plant, especially [...]


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Ferns Rule the Shade

Earlier this month, a friend asked me to help her design a few plantings along a pathway through a wooded part of her land here in Greenwood.  Wooded areas are often difficult to plant in, as you need low-maintenance, deer-resistant, full-shade plants.  Hopefully she'll be pleased when I show up in a few weekends with [...]


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Ferns Add Interest to the Shade

I just recently helped a friend install a koi pond and waterfall in a shaded area, and we had to find the perfect plants to accent the new feature. We relied heavily on ferns for interesting foliage, and we learned a little along the way. Growing up, my grandmother always had ferns hanging on her [...]


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Hosta Venus

There is a hosta with a flower like just about nothiner you've ever seen on a hosta– the Hosta Venus has huge, showy white twice-double blooms that come out late in the summer and in the early fall, after most Hostas have passed. Hosta blooms are usually a little more subtle, but this giant fragrant [...]


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Shade Perennials

Shade plants are often come in a very limited color range because there is not enough sunlight to bring out most of those beautiful bright floral colors, and deep color is usually too dark to stand out. When designing a shade garden, one must rely heavily on textures and light-colored shade plants that will stand [...]


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Echinacea, The Hardy Coneflower

Coneflowers are especially hardy, Japanese beetles can be a problem in some areas, but they are resistant to mostly everything. They are beautiful and showy no matter what cultivar you choose. They have large brightly colored flowers with the big cone-like centers that give them their name. They grow to be about three feet tall [...]


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A Bog Garden Story from Wayside Gardens

Good Research Makes a Happy Gardener While probing for ideas that might add a little intrigue to the pitifully uninspiring flora of my backyard, I was told by a fellow Wayside Gardens employee to check out bog gardens. My first thought was of a marsh or swamp, something more appropriate for a wildlife preserve or [...]


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