Shade Gardening: what to replace large green hosta eaten by voles., 1 by sempervirens

sempervirens wrote:
I tend a similar schoolyard garden and have found heucheras a good easy subsitute for hostas. As bbrookrd mentioned Japanese painted fern is a good choice, especially with Palace purple heuchera. Place those 2 in front of bleeding heart (to cover summer die back) and you have a easy multi season grouping. The bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis) is an early bloomer, spreads to a large clump over time, and has a strong impact.
The Heuchera I like most as a hosta substitute is Heuchera villosa "Autumn Bride". It has big green maple leaves and lovely tall white bottle brush blooms in the fall which is a good bloom time for the start of the school year. It also forms large clumps over time and can be easily divided. Caramel is one of the newer villosa cultivars which has good colorful foliage (changing according to the season and placement from ochre to golden to red tinged) but does not seem to have the blooms like "Autumn Bride".
Another easy spreading plant is variegated solomon seal (Polygonatum odoratum). The delicate white blooms and white tipped leaves look lovely arching over white hellebore in the spring. The hellebore with Christmas fern have winter presence.
Heres a photo of the Autumn Bride in the spring with hostas and solomon seal.