Looking to refresh your garden, but live in a chilly region? Here are 9 flowering perennials that offer an appealing palette of texture and bloom for cold climate gardens where shade sets the pace.
Dicentra eximia is native to the eastern United States and has an unusually long bloom time for any perennial: its pendant dusky pink flowers open steadily from mid-spring through summer.
1. Fringed Bleeding Heart
These ephemerals are one of the jewels of shady forest floors in the eastern United States. Happiest in slightly acidic soil they will bloom in mid-spring and become dormant in summer.
2. Trout Lily
Packera aurea sparkles with life in shade and will grow in some sun, too. The yellow daisy-like flowers appear for about four weeks in spring.
3. Golden Ragwort
Trillium species are the woodland aristocrats of the Midwest and eastern United States. In late spring their graceful flowers are distinctive and elegant.
4. Wake Robin
Podophyllum peltatum is an unusual eastern native, emerging in early spring like a reptile from a sticky egg sack.
5. May Apple (American Mandrake)
One of the best wild perfumes belongs to the woodland native Actaea pachypoda; The scent of the flowers is like lemon blossom.
6. Doll's Eyes
The variegated form of Polygonatum odoratum is a tough and graceful perennial, growing well in sun as well as dense shade.
7. Solomon's Seal
The bowed stalks of Maianthemum racemosum resemble Solomon’s seal, until they begin to bloom, showing off feathery white plumes at their tips.
8. False Solomon's Seal
With flowers of heartbreaking blue, Mertensia virginica is the native answer to dreams of European bluebell woods, perfectly suited to being massed under deciduous trees.