Good news for plant lovers: Bluestone Perennials is having their annual sale now! Everything in their online catalog is half-price until June 1. They ship three-packs of teeny-tiny plants, and receiving them in mid-June it can be hard sometimes to get them all through the first year. But the prices in the June sale are so good that I don't mind losing a few. And they always send a big coupon book, and they used to have this special where if you sent back your box and styrofoam peanuts, you'd get free shipping on the next order. They seem like a nice company.
We did so little gardening last fall, and we have that whole huge area the goats cleared to fill, that we went a little crazy with our Bluestone order. Almost all plants relatively common species, but unusual varieties we don't see locally.
For shade we ordered:
AJUGA Burgundy Glow (nice bi-colored leaves)
AQUILEGIA Melba Higgins (a pretty dark purple columbine)
ASTILBE Peach Blossom (supposedly more tolerant of dry conditions, which we need)
HYDRANGEA quercifolia Little Honey (a "dwarf" oakleaf hydreangea, only grows 4' tall and 4' wide)
TRICYRTIS Taipei Silk (I love toad lilies!)
TIARELLA Sugar and Spice (foamflower)
And for sun:
ARTEMISIA Powis Castle (this exact variety is commonly available, but we love it, it will grow fast and the price was fantastic)
ECHINOPS Platinum Blue (aka "globe thistle," gorgeous blue flowers)
EUPHORBIA Excalibur (I'm so crazy about euphorbia I had to get two, a big one and a small one)
EUPHORBIA x martinii Tiny Tim
OENOTHERA Tetragona Summer Solstice (bright yellow flowers)
CALAMINTHA Nepetoides (white catmint)
RUDBECKIA hirta Solar Eclipse (a bicolored black-eyed susan)
WALDSTEINIA Fragarioides (some kind of non-fruiting strawberry that forms a "weed choking carpet." We sure need that.)
Looking over the list it's mostly blue and yellow flowers in the sun, and mostly white flowers in the shade. I'm excited about the shade plants! We haven't had much space in the shade to plant before. I've been wanting astilbes and an oakleaf hydrangea for a long time.
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