Epimedium 'Purple Pixie' caught our notice with its distinct purple blooms with contrasting white spurs emerging in early spring. The deepest purple selection available on the market, it's also notable for its ability to reach its mature size quickly without becoming aggressive. A perfect addition to the shade garden, the green foliage is streaked with burgundy all season long.

Looking for an easy, low-maintenance, long-lived groundcover for shade? Look no further! This Epimedium x rubrum has delicate, heart-shaped leaves that emerge red in spring, become lush green in summer, and have lovely fall color. The blooms are light and airy red and light yellow blooming in early spring. Great for moist shade locations but tolerates dry shade once established!

Add a little brightness to your dreary early spring day! Epimedium × versicolor ‘Sulphureum’ has pale yellow short-spurred flowers emerging in early spring that hang delicately above heart-shaped foliage. Leaves emerge a soft red, mature to a verdant green, and change color again in the fall. Excellent groundcover in dry shade, this plant spreads quickly to keep weeds at bay while filling the niche of what to plant near a garden path perfectly. 

A soft dusting of white flowers hovers on racemes above heart-shaped foliage emerging bronze in spring. Epimedium × youngianum ‘Niveum’ is a compact and slower-growing barrenwort, perfect to grow around tree roots, along path edges, or in naturalised areas as a well-behaved dry shade groundcover. 

Easily flowing through the landscape, this grass softens the garden with its gracefully arching blades as they drift between plantings. The soft vibrant green of this species indigenous to the mountains of Japan lends tranquility to your plantings – especially impactful in large masses under limbed-up deciduous trees.

Helleborus ViV 'Victoria' is part of the Joie de Vivre Collection from noted breeder Belgian Helleborus specialist Het Wilgenbroek. 'Victoria' is a very durable and long-blooming cultivar with masses of purple flowers blooming from September through till spring. 

Helleborus 'Emma' is an early flowering hellebore with beautiful large white flowers that age to a mauve pink. Very floriferous from December to May on a neat habit of dark green foliage with a lighter green veining. -Ashwood Nurseries

A mix of the Helleborus HONEYMOON® Series from Walter's Gardens. Colors in the mix include apricot, black, mauve purple, white, yellow, wine red, and pink.

Helleborus 'New York Night' is a part of the HONEYMOON® Series from Walter's Gardens. Helleborus 'New York Night' bears 2½-3”, single flowers with shades of black that include deep grey-purple, jet black, and black-purple. Dramatic, breath-taking, and exciting - a bit like an evening in the Big Apple itself. 

Helleborus 'Paris in Pink' is a part of the HONEYMOON® Series from Walter's Gardens. 'Paris in Pink' bears 3½-4”, single light to medium pink flowers - romantic, simple, and memorable. 

Helleborus 'Rome in Red' is a part of the HONEYMOON® Series from Walter's Gardens. 'Rome in Red' bears 3-4”, single rich maroon to wine red flowers - a dashingly enticing Hellebore, perfect for the shade garden. 

Helleborus 'Sandy Shores' is a part of the HONEYMOON® Series from Walter's Gardens. 'Sandy Shores' bears 2½-3”, single pale apricot flowers with a lovely rosy pink color on the backs - soft, golden, and lovely like a sunset on the beach in Hawaii. 

Helleborus 'Vegas Nights' is a part of the HONEYMOON® Series from Walter's Gardens. 'Vegas Nights' bears 3", single slate gray to dark purple flowers. Dark, mysterious, and up to some mischief - reminds us of Sin City. 

Helleborus 'Blushing Bridesmaid' is a part of the WEDDING PARTY® Series from Walter's Gardens. 'Blushing Bridesmaid' bears 2-2½” double white flowers with raspberry pink veining and picotee edge, a lovely addition to the shade garden. 

Helleborus 'Dark and Handsome' is a part of the WEDDING PARTY® Series from Walter's Gardens. Helleborus 'Dark and Handsome' bears 2½-3", near black to black-purple flowers.

Helleborus 'Maid of Honor' is a part of the WEDDING PARTY® Series from Walter's Gardens. 'Maid of Honor' ranges in color from light to dark pink, bearing 2-3” double flowers.

Helleborus 'Wedding Bells' is a part of the WEDDING PARTY® Series from Walter's Gardens. ‘Wedding Bells’ bears clear white, 2-2½” double flowers, with the singing blooms brightening up the shade garden. 

Helleborus 'Wedding Crasher' is a part of the WEDDING PARTY® Series from Walter's Gardens. ‘Wedding Crasher' is a bold party-starter with 3", soft pink flowers are liberally covered with darker pink spots.

Plainly stated, it’s a show stopper. Beyond other Iris selections on the market, ‘Purple Flame’ has a richer, more intense cast to stems and flowers, yes. However, the true beauty lies in the irresistible foliage. Emerging in March, the purple flame-like foliage provides an unparalleled performance of vivid and intense eggplant purple foliage followed by an encore of rich and abundant flowers. 

A free-blooming Nepeta that lives up to its namesake—it is summer magic! Blooming all season long on upright stems that never flop, even in the worst of storms, this plant was on RHS Chelsea Flower show’s Short List in 2013. Great for layering in the garden, placed in a container, or along a flower border. We admire its ability to ‘keep it fresh’ even in the heat and humidity of summer as other Nepeta varieties tend to fade.

A seed cultivar with upright silver stems covered in a mist of lavender-blue flowers. The perfect plant to intermingle textures in flower borders, it is tough as steel and adds cool color through the late summer. A favorite of butterflies and bumblebees, avoided by deer, and able to withstand the baking and sweltering temperatures of summer - what’s not to like?

Densely branching with fine foliage and white flowers atop terminal clusters, this Pycnanthemum tenuifolium, or slender mountain mint, has a more delicate appearance than P. muticum but with all the same pollinator action. Like its mountain mint brethren, P. tenuifolium spreads generously by rhizome making this plant a wonderful mass of white blooms in late summer. 

A new introduction from Brent Horvath of Intrinsic Perennials, this Rudbeckia is covered in blooms on a domed and shorter version of a black-eyed Susan. It is perfect planted in masses or in the perennial border and it hides spent blooms to provide uniform color as it blooms for weeks on end. Due to its thinner, hairier leaves, it is found to be resistant to septoria leaf spot.

An early blooming, petite Salvia! Blooming a month earlier than the popular 'May Night', Salvia 'April Night' provides lush violet-blue blooms from spring to summer. 

The most diminutive of hybrid ironweeds available on the market, ‘Summer’s Swan Song’ is a selection from our friend Jim Ault at Chicago Botanic Garden. The foliage is olive green with a purple tinge on wine red stems and covered in deep purple flowers from early to mid-autumn. Attention-grabbing at CBG’s Vernonia trials, the long flowering branches interlock to hold the stems upright on the blusteriest of days.