Yoki's garden: Dry shade bed in front of house
Extreme gardening notes with expert input from DMD, ML, DR and Frosti.
DMD developed this version of a plant list. This is a good place to contemplate native plants for your Canadian 2b zone.
Dry shade: Not an easy row to hoe. Be sure to check with a reputable nursery about their choices. You could use as a ground cover something called Archangel or Lamium. Frosti grows other Lamium species in Northern Minnesota. But you may have limited choices due to dry, windy, cold conditions. Golden Archangel ( Lamium galeobdolon): This groundcover may choke out other plants, but you COULD try sinking a five gallon plastic flower pot into the ground and planting it with Monkshood or Wolfsbane (Aconitum). Some Aconite species will work in the cold but would need rich soil and some watering.
Keeping this in a sunk pot, however, would limit your watering the plot more generally. Look for a plant that is species or species-like. You can start here at a USDA site, to see the "look" of Monkshood. Alert! Monkshood IS EXTREMELY POISONOUS.
From DMD's list for 2b: Check out
Aconitum columbianum
Aconitum delphinium
Why Monskhood? Blue as you requested AND because the plant likes shade. If a corner is sunny or the morning sun is adequate, you could consider Larkspur or even Blazing Star. For a hint at what Larkspur (Consolida species, generally) see this picture by DR.
How do bulbs fare? Many bulbs will grow up through Lamium, giving you color in the spring with something like Blue Squill and daffodils. Aconite will bloom in fall or late summer. I wonder if ML's Mountain Bluet (Centaura montanus) would work at all. The collage of blue and yellow IF they bloom together might be charming. More on this later.
USDA Photo: Susan McDougall
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Yoki, I have some lamium, a white nancy variety and a more generic one, which was once a pot filler on the deck. I would not call these invasive in the goutweed way, but they do self seed. They spread, but if you rake the area in spring it seems to keep them in their boundaries. They have a fine network of roots but that makes them easy to pulll out where they are unwanted. They love washed rock mulch (ask me how I know)
Centaura montanus yes yes yes. A truer blue, and its booming right now in the back. The monkshood is getting ready to bloom too. Watch for the variegated variety, its got more flowers per stem, but is paler in camparison to the old dark blue.
Bulbs? Yes to Blue Squills, Scilla Siberica, I think is the variety I have out there somwhere, and grape hyacinths thrive. I've had some luck with tulips though no matter what colour of Appeldorns I start with, they all turn yellow in the end.
Yoki, don't forget yellow and blue Columbine both native in your area, also these bulbs, zone 3 but in a place close to the house with mulch may make it.
http://www.botanus.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=37246&Category_Code=FS&Product_Count=11
They are little but have a wonderful scent and multiply over the years, had some at the old house in really crappy conditions (dry partial shade, little snow cover if any), and they kept reappearing.
Columbine should do well - I fell in love with it in western Montana, where it grew prolificly on the north (I think) side of the house. There is Rocky Mountain columbine, which is blue and white. From the catalog that dmd linked to - great choices. Siberian iris are great, trouble free, and lots of blues. I was going to suggest daylillies - most of mine are in a dry, partial shade setting, but are tough as nails. I have Catherine Woodbury too. I love lillies, especially the ones that have the down-facing flowers. I was wondering if some true heather (calluna vulgaris) might be hardy enough for you. I have to go read more about the zone.
mostly you are making me miss my lillies at the old house, they were in a garden lining the deck, I had four or five varieties, a few with heavy scent, so nice to sit out on a warm night and smell them. Once I cut one and brought it inside, unfortunately I was pregnant at the time and in the middle of the night got up to throw it outside as the smell was driving me crazy. I had a wild sense of smell both time I was pregnant just about drove me insane.
Asters would do well also,lots of blue. I have a stokes aster that I just bought it starts as a blue/lavender and darkens to a violet, all the gardens are new to me, as is the light in the gardens so I am starting from scratch and finding where I can put plants and discovering some really different ones. I put in a Prairie Sage that I have just fallen in love with and a Broom with red flowers in late spring.
Lamium should do well in Yoki's dry shade. I'd call it vigorous, not invasive. As already mentioned it is easily pulled if it wanders out of place. I've been taking cuttings to make mine jump across the walk. No special care required. I just take a cutting, strip it of all but two leaves, plunge in very sandy soil, and water if I remember. I have about a 50% success rate, which is fine for no cost in currency or effort. With a little supplementary water, and I do mean little, I'd recommend hosta. I have a dozen small ones divided from a clump my grandmother planted over 35 years ago. She was an indifferent gardener so it was not sited particularly well and had no care at all for 20 plus years. I believe its former microclimate was more zone 2 than 3 with horrible drying winds all winter.