Front yard groundcovers Z5b

I'd really be grateful for any suggestions for a groundcover for our front yard that's heavily shaded but with strong west sun in the afternoon. Sometimes dry shade, sometimes wet -- depending upon the capriciousness of southeastern wisconsin summers. We want our front yard to fit in with those of our neighbors who all have wonderfully manicured front lawns (they look like golf course greens), but the grass in our front yard is spotty at best. In time I hope to fill in much of the yard with shade perennials, but for now I just want our yard to be uniformly, not patchy, green. Thanks, thanks, thanks for your recommendations.

What about vinca minor (periwinkle)?

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/174/index.html

I'm told it's impossible to kill and it spreads fast.

Whatever you do, don't let Equilibrium get on your thread!! hahaha

YES IT SPREADS, yessiree, can be invasive, I am Equils New England counterpart, LOL

I have this stuff in my yard and have been lucky, it happens to be in a spot that I can hit with the mower and it hasn't got out of bounds yet, but it would if I got sick for a week in the growing season.

How about lamiastrum? It goes gangbusters here in a very similar spot. I love the variegation, since it brightens up the area. It spreads and fills in quickly, and once it's established can take dry conditions without a problem. I have a ton of it. If you want some in the spring d-mail me. I'd be happy to share.

Stacy

Having just returned from very near your part of the world, here are recommendations from the Morton Arboretum for evergreen groundcovers. Read up on each and see which might be appropriate for your particular conditons. * means IL native.

*Arctostaphylos uva-ursi
Asarum europaeum
Bergenia cordifolia
Carex morrowii 'Ice Dance'
Helleborus orientalis
*Heuchera spp.
Iberis sempervirens
Juniperus communis var. repanda
Juniperus procumbens 'Nana'
Liriope spicata
Mahonia repens
Microbiota decussata
Pachysandra procumbens
Pachysandra terminalis
Paxistima canbyi
*Polystichum acrostichoides
Thymus serpyllum

I left out a few that are considered invasive plants elsewhere.

Vibernum - Great list! I see you posting periodically...my Grandad lives in Scott County at Mallard Point.

How does he like the balmy south? Having a heat wave, 7ºF this a.m., with our whine.

Mallard Point is just north of town; we're east, on 10 acres smack in the middle of the Newtown-Loradale-New Zion metroplex. He'll know just the spot.

Nice here this morning too - 1 degree with a windchill of -11.

I've been down there many many times. My parents used to live in Mallard Point, also. You're blessed to live in such a beautiful part of the country.

Viburnum, That is a great list, many I am not familiar with. Refreshing to see such a wide variety!
Butterfly, what zone are you?

I have the Arctostaphylos uva-ursi 'Manhattan'. I also have the very similar Vaccinium vitis-idaea minus "Wild Lingonberry". I am trying to find Vaccinium vitis-idaea 'Ida'. It is commercial cultivar only slightly larger, but it has the largest fruit. It is new and patented. The name 'Ida' has got to be the stupidest name ever. Many sights will tell you the Latin name means it resembles the vine of Mt. Ida, but they do not have 'Ida'.

Hello Everyone -- WOW! Great response -- much more than I expected. I have some homework to do. Viburnum, your list is awesome. Racine is a 5b. I have visited the Berea area many times and even thought of retiring to Kentucky. Beautiful country. Yes, with these nasty windchills and a yard of snow and ice, I can only dream of summer.

hey grenthumbs- does it spread around your yard when you mow it?

nice- equilibrium's counterpart!! I'll have to start asking you a million questions, too, from now on!!

cjolene, you ask me, I'll ask her, and get back to you...LOL!

No it hasn't speard from me mowing it. But when I first moved in, nine years ago,I didn't know any better. I yanked it out hand over fist and tossed it in the side yard...OOOPS! I had to yank it out again and dispose of it in black trash bags, that I left on the hot paved driveway for a week. That did the trick. It hasn't been TO bad for me as long as I keep its patch small and keep my eye on it, but if your lookin for a nice ground cover periwinkle can be a pain in the butt for sure, and I live in a chilly spot, I can't imagine it in a warmer zone, ugh!
Dena

Hey Dena! Tag, you're it!

Stacy, do you have any photos you could post for butterflywi on how you created some of your beds? What you have done on your property is the best of the best from what I have seen.

Hey butterflyflywi! We be neighbors... well almost. Here's a very affordable nursery for you to check into- Dragonfly Nurseries 715.268.7660. They do not have an online catalog but if you call them they'll send one out to you. Their plants are grown just a tad north and west of you and will be very hardy where we live. The other plus to them is that you can purchase plants in 4 and 6 packs for about the price of what you would pay for just two plants from regular nurseries. This is a big help when starting out from scratch. Another nursery that is smack dab in the same town as you that often will carry many of the plants you might be interested in is Milaegers, There's one right in Racine and then there's another Milaegers over toward Sturtevant. The people at the Sturtevant location seem to be more knowledgeable. I'm not saying the other location doesn't have nice staff but for some reason, the part timers that come back year after year to work in Sturtevant seem to have a greater working knowledge of the plants being sold.

You mention having a western exposure in the front lawn. Afternoon sun can be pretty intense. Do you have trees that are shading the area? Just curious. My suggestions for plants that should be able to tolerate the conditions you mentioned would be-
Bird’s Foot Violet (Viola pedata)
Heart-Leaf Golden Alexanders (Zizia aptera)
Yellow Fawn Lily (Erythronium americanum)
Dwarf Larkspur (Delphinium tricome)
Blue-Eyed Grass (Sysrinchium angustifolium)
Ohio Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohioensis)
Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis)
Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginiana)
Alleghany Pachysandra (Pachysandra procumbens)
Goat’s Beard (Aruncus diocius)
White Baneberry (Actaea Pachypoda)
Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica)
Leadplant (Amorpha canescens)
Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium reptans)
Bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora)
Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)
Trailing Arbutus (Epigaea repens)
Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)
Black Cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa)
Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum biflorum var. commutatum)
Great Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum canaliculatum) Great height
Hepatica (Hepatica americana)
Virginia Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginiananum)
Partridgeberry (Mitchela repens)
Bleeding Heart (Dicentra eximia)
Twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla)
Big Leaved Aster (Aster macrophyllus)
Smooth Penstemon (Penstemon digitalis)
Lg Flowered Pestemon (Penstemon grandiflorus)
Anemone (Anemone Canadensis)
Miterwort (Mitella diphylla)
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)
Foam Flower (Tiarella cordifolia)
Zig Zag Goldenrod (Solidago flexicaulis)
Most Heuchera
Most Pulmonaria
Most Hosta
Many Ferns

The only plant V V recommended that might make me a little nervous would be the Thyme (Thymus serpyllum). I wasn’t familiar with Paxistima canbyi so I searched for it and that looks way cool but I have no experience with it. I wasn’t familiar with Bergenia cordifolia either and that looks like one I’d like to try so thanks for recommending that V V. Although I like the look of Microbiota decussate, I think I like the look of Compact Andorra Juniper (Juniperus horizontalis 'Plumosa Compacta' ) better but that’s just personal preference.

It looks to me as if your question was two fold, plant suggestions and lawn suggestions. Racine is an established community and many of the neighborhoods are from the 30's and 40's. I'm no lawn care anything but I know exactly what you are talking about from driving around. Just like properties in Chicago, it seems as if over the years the lawns get compacted and they fry out. Turf is out of my league but I'll share what we did when we lived in a home built in the early 1900's down a little bit from you in Illinois. My suggestions are unorthodox but at the time I was struggling to "fit" in with my neighbors and was sort of broke after having purchased a "Money Pit" that was sucking us dry so there was little money to hire lawn care professionals- no, there was no money to buy lawn care services and I was a little overwhelmed by neighbors who stated they had experienced the same problems and had hired landscapers to kill off all existing grass to start from scratch by sodding. We had no money to buy sod. I bought some sort of an Ortho book to try to help me with my lawn and it did nothing but confuse me. First thing I did was buy bags of top soil from K-Mart and I spread them out about an inch over my entire lawn right over the existing grass. Don’t ask me why because I can’t answer why I did that but it seemed like the thing to do for some odd reason. We then rented a drum type thingie that we had filled with water that had spikes in it that when rolled across the lawn helped puncture the ground to aerate it spewing out little golf tee like spikes. I was told aerating a lawn was good- I have no idea if it was good or not but everyone kept telling me to aerate the lawn. Next out the gate came a tactic with a twist. I bought my husband golf shoes with the old metal cleats in them. I asked him to please wear his shoes when he cut the lawn. You’ll love the rationale behind this one… no money left to keep renting the drum to roll over the lawn so I figured maybe golf shoes would help??? I know I added some sort of bagged fertilizer that I spread around the ground by hand- too cheap to buy a spreader at the time so I probably used 4x the product I needed to use. From there we attempted to seed the lawn. Now this is where I started feeling as if we were a movie set from a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock flick "The Birds" and this is where I had neighbors leaning over the fence telling me to stop beating myself up the side of the head and go with sod. Back to the birds, you know those flocks of birds that descend upon lawns and McDonalds Parking lots around us by the hundreds and thousands? Have you ever seen them? Now that I am mentioning them, you will see them if you haven't already. Those birds are English House Sparrows and European Starlings. Our area is inundated with them. Every time I tried to seed that lawn, they descended upon it and I swear they picked me clean of every seed that was put down on the ground. This cost me tons of money (that I didn’t have) buying seed and more seed and more seed. I never did quite figure out how to deal with those rotten lawn sucking birds back then but I spread bales of straw around to try to save some of my seed back then and that might have helped. Something I did worked because the lawn looked considerably better by fall. I'm in a new home now and I still have problems with those same birds but have learned a few tricks to foil them. The minute the forecast is for snow, I get ready. If all indicators are that we're going to get a few inches, I go out and spread seed right then and there so that it gets buried by a few inches of snow. Those nasty seed thieving birds won't pick through snow to get at my seed and much of it settles down into cracks and crevices so the swarming flocks don't get as much. They'll still try to pick you clean, they just won't get it all.

There have got to be people out there who can help you who actually know what they are doing with lawns as opposed to me who was penniless at the time and acting out of sheer and unadulterated desperation. I know virtually nothing about lawns other than that I want my current lawn gone some day in the not so distant future so that I have more time to go play in the dirt.

Welcome to DG! May your lawn be lush and green very soon.

Lauren

I've done the same thing that Lauren mentioned about golf shoes on the lawn - it does help somewhat, but you have to wear them pretty religiously to get a significant benefit. We can't use a mechanical aerator here because the dinks that put in the sprinkler system didn't bury the lines deeply enough. We areated once and it looked like a 100 mini old faithfuls in the backyard. Spent a fortune just getting all the lines patched.

Instead of fighting the lawn and trying to have grass better than the Joneses, out do them and put in a killer perennial bed.

There are a number of plants on Lauren's list I've put in and that have done well here. Pulmonarias, solomon seal, huecheras, tradescantia, bloodwort, anenomes, columbines, bleeding hearts, perennial geraniums, etc. I added a LOT of plants last year, and will be putting in even more this spring. I put in cimifuga and aruncus (Lauren's list) last year. On Vibernum's list, I also added hellebores and bergenia. I also put in woodland phlox, siberain iris, brunera, and phlox stolonifera (Bruce's white). Probably the most reliable non-groundcover shade plants I have (besides hosta) are lobelia siphilitica, pulmonaria, toad lilies, and astilbe Peach Blossom. As far as astilbes go, I've had the best luck with Peach Blossom. It seems to tolerate both the damp and the dry better than the others, it fills in nicely, and I haven't killed any yet. All of the other astilbes I've planted bit the dust for one reason or another.

The majority of my garden beds are at least half shade, some in full dense shade, with some areas damp and some bone dry. There are pics of some of our efforts in my diary/garden tour at http://davesgarden.com/journal/d/m/sstateham/

If you want a personal tour in the spring you're welcome to come for a visit. My plants are stranger friendly - they love company!

Stacy

The Brunnera suggestion was great. I have a few of those. I like the Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost' best but there are a few others that are equally nice.

I don't have any Toad Lily here yet... but I'm hoping the seed I received from Stacy germinates and if it does, I'll be very happy as that is one really neat looking plant.

Hi~~~~that is quite a list. I think you have to decide what look you want. Many of the plants suggested will not be evergreen and therefore you will have nothing in the winter. Depending on the size of your area I would suggest going with all one ground cover or a combination of groundcovers that look good most of the time since it is right by your front door. Ophiopogon (if it is hardy in your area) always looks good and there are different kinds (dwarf....black...variagated..and the regular all green. The Paxistima would be great but dont know about the Mahonia with full afternoon sun. The morning shade and afternoon sun are the absolute worst conditions. You could probably have knockout roses if you want to go that way. Also acorus ogon is yellow all year long. The vinca never makes a CONSISTANT ground cover...beside being invasive, it dies out in places with some sort of fungus. You would not be happy with that one I promise. Just my opinion~~~~Nancy

Keeping my fingers crossed here too - I planted a flat of the same toad lily seed. I'll be a very happy camper if I get even 50% germination.

Good suggestions - I hadn't thought about evergreen. That would make a big difference. Add pachysandra to the list? It's evergeen here.

Pachysandra is so so well sooooo boring. There are so many kinds of groundcovers and combinations of them that would make it really interesting. Even the procumbens is ugly in the winter~~all flat against the ground. That one also grows in circles. Nice though in another place.

Hey levilyla, I think I know why her whole front yard is in shade. Most of the trees in Racine were planted back when the homes were first built. Many of them are huge. Racine planted mostly deciduous but many homeowners added conifers that are now considerably taller than the homes. I kept thinking of how brutal a true unobstructed western exposure could be for her which is why I had asked if trees were shading her front yard. Not too many homes in the Racine area that don't have mature trees and then the street trees that were planted by the city have also grown and are adding to the shade. Racine is actually a nice established community.

You make a very good point about Periwinkle (Vinca spp.). I've had personal experience with that as well as with English Ivy (Hedera helix) and I wouldn't wish either of those on my worst enemy. That English Ivy heaved my new sidewalks in just a few years. I have never seen anything like that before in my life.

Ya don't like my Pachysandra, eh! On its own it is rather boring. I've got it companion planted with Dodecatheon meadia and the Shooting Stars look neat in the spring when they pop up in and amongst the Alleghany Pachy. Makes the ground in that area not look so barren.

No don't get me wrong..I love it and I have it...just wondering about the front yard thing. I also have English Ivy all over EVEYTHING and can't seem to get rid of it. and I throw away the jap. pachysandra by the trash barrel full and my DH finds it and replants it somewhere. He loves it. It just a matter or personal opinion and that's why i asked what "Look" she wanted. Neat or well more natural. Most of my garden is a little too natural but can't be helped because we live in the woods with many huge trees. And while I have you....how do you get rid of English Ivy on a 200 foot Tulip Poplar (I mean without it looking HORRIBLE for the next ten years).

LOl Levilyla - That's how my poison ivy looks! If english ivy wasn't almost as bad I'd trade. Re the pachy - I don't like it on it's own, but it does make a good solid underplanting as a groundcover. Thankfully I have enough other interest in the garden in winter. This is taken last week....

More pachy - this bed has daffs, siberian iris, brunera, pulmonaria, lady's mantle, and tradescantia. The stump and the magnolia give it interest for winter.

Pachysandra terminalis is the Asian Pachysandra and it is a stoloniferous forming ground cover where the North American Pachysandra procumbens is a clump forming ground cover and it spreads more gracefully and not nearly as aggressively as its American cousin which is the plant I suggested she consider. It's evergreen south of here but might actually be a herbaceous perennial up north where she lives. Two totally different plants... unfortunately Nancy, you have the Asian thug. It gets to the point where I take printed lists with me so I don't make mistakes when purchasing plants. I get tired and often catch the genus while not paying attention to the species. I've lost more money by not paying attention to the species when purchasing than I care to admit.

Oh my gawd! They always say a photo is worth a million words. Like I said, I wouldn't wish that stuff on my worst enemy. I planted a few hundred pugs of English Ivy here. We had to literally have lengths of our sidewalk removed and repoured after it tried to make a break for my front lawn. I also have to tell you that it looked really nice growing up the front of my house until I realized it had worked its way under some of my siding and I had Dutch lap buckling on the side of my house from the weight. Special plant, very special. I don't recall what it cost us to repair our siding.

Here's what I did to kill off my English Ivy and I have to give you a disclaimer here... it is still popping up from time to time begging me to nuke it and it's quite a few years later. I bought a box of stamp licker bottles from Office Max or maybe it was Office Depot. I can't remember which but they were around a $1 a piece. I then bought regular old RoundUp and filled up my little bottles. I applied the chemical to the underside of the leaves. I sat there on my rear for hours and hours and hours until my butt fell asleep. I went back and kept hitting those plants every 10 days and finally, after many weeks of nailing them, I noticed dieback. I always tried to apply the chemical in late morning when these plants are photosynthesizing their little brains out. Good to remember that you want to only apply the chemical when you are going to have outer air temps in the range of 60-80.

In looking at what you've got growing up that Tulip Tree, I'm wondering if you can't start pulling some of the vines off that tree to get them down to ground level where you can work on them. I spread vines out on tarps and paint them with chemicals all the time to be able to try to kill them.

V V goes at vines differently than me so you better ask for his method and try them both. His method goes for new growth. New growth is better able to be penetrated with chemical because the leaves haven't had a chance to fully form their waxy shields.

If you don't have time to start a massive kill off project, stop it from fruiting by severing any vines you can get to.

There are entire websites out there trying to help people kill off this English Ivy.

http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/moredocs/hedhel02.pdf#search='Hedera%20ivy%20league'
http://www.noivyleague.com/

You poor thing.

Thanks...we have already started cutting the bottom stems and pulling as much off as we can and then just pulling it up by hand everywhere else. the thing is~~~~~~~this particular tree is what we look at right our of our family room window and this ivy is now like a shrub growing up its' trunk. We would be looking at dead leaves and stems for the rest of our lives. It blooms beautifully in late summer and the whole trunk looks like it is moving with many different kinds of bees. Then of course it throws out its' seed.! Little by little I guess...I am almost hoping the whole tree will fall over but that would take out our lower pond and everything else in site! I have many nice things in my garden but I also have many horrible ones. (like the sanicle) LOL

I loved the Sanicle! He he he! But then again I liked the Skunk Cabbage too!

You don't like my vinca minor, Lauren? *sniff* *sniff* I was seriously going to plant it this year. I got a little bit on an end of season clearance but never got around to planting it. I keep forgetting to water it, but it's still just barely alive. Now that's my kind of plant! hahaha But there's still time to talk me out of planting it- just saying it's invasive doesn't scare me because I've got all those patches to cover still. Does it cause damage to property with it's roots like ivy does? What else puts it on your "beware" list?

Also, I noticed you listed Bloodroot. It just reminded me that I saw the most gorgeous double Bloodroot in the Plant Delights catalog. Simply breathtaking! But they wanted about 30 big ones for it...plus 20 for shipping. Just couldn't justify it....wish the double variety were more common.

Cheryl

cj,
If I may, let me describe my lovely Periwinkle to you.
on the up side, its green all year. The little purple flowers are *cute* at best.
On the down side, it grows and grows, it grows out, sideways, into the lawn, across the walkways, and thats not the best part....don't you just love to have to mow it every spring?!!! Yes, it gets tall to, to keep it tidy, I have to mow it down each spring, that means I can't plant anything else in there with it cuz it'll get burried and mowed in my constant efforts to keep it at bay. I've pulled it out, but you can't get all the roots, so the only way to rid yourself of it for certain, maybe, possibly, ok let me refraze that, you could possibly get rid of it by smothering it with plastic, but then kiss every other thing you planted with it good bye as well. I will post a picture after sun up, and you can have yourself a looksee.
I emplore you not to do this to yourself.
stick it in a container and enjoy it for a while, get your $ worth but don't plant it in your yard.

Dena

I don't like it for the opposite reason of everyone else. Oddly, I can't get vinca to cover or spread well for me here.

Cheryl! It’s way too early for questions like yours! Gosh darnitall you’re gonna make me work to earn my keep here! OK- labeling a plant as invasive, as opposed to aggressive or weedy or noxious, generally is a red flag that there are considerably more concerns than that which meet the eye.

For the record, Vinca spp. isn’t currently one of my “hit list”/”bug up my butt” plants because there are plants out there that are considerably more injurious to public health than the ever so cutsie boring (yawn- everyone has them) periwinkle so I’m not going to try to talk you out of planting it but since you asked why it’s on my “beware” list… let’s take a look at the beastie!

Periwnkle generally reproduces by trailing stems that root at the nodes. This is a very shallowly rooted plant that people have been planting for erosion control??? Planting Vinca for erosion control defies logic given Vinca root systems are extremely shallow so please know this is not a plant that should even be considered for bare spots or slopes because it doesn’t possess the properties requisite to control erosion. Best to consider Ginger (Asarum Caudarum) for erosion control of shady bare spots. Asarum Caudarum has a root system that extends several feet down into the soil. Now there’s an ideal plant for shady bare spots. Ginger has very attractive round and shiny leaves and even has flowers although they aren’t very showy. Another possibility for these types of sites is Oxalis oregano but there are others. The Oxalis is quite pretty with nice big pink blooms.

Comment- although the roots of Vinca are shallow, this does not mean they aren’t aggressive. The roots of Vinca are major nutrient and water hogs sucking life out of the soil in which they are planted. Piggie Vinca plants stress out other plants particularly in late summer and early fall because Vinca will have removed much of the available water in the soil creating additional stress for plants growing in the near vicinity. Sooner or later other plants you have in the area will fail to thrive due to nutrient and water loss. Of course if Vinca takes off as it is known to do… well then there would be no problems as no plants would be able to compete with it so there would be nothing in its path to suck the life out of.

Now let’s get to what will be of interest to you. Here’s where you made me work because I am not all that familiar with the pathogens attacking Vinca (I don’t plant it anywhere) so I had to go and look each one up!

Phomopsis livella
Botrytis cinerea
Colletotrichum spp.
Macrophoma vincae
Phyllosticta spp.
Phyllosticta minor
Pellicularia filamentosa

Talk about lending new definition to the term “fungus among us”! The above list represents a few, but not all, fungus species that loooooooove Vinca. Quite an impressive list if I don’t say so myself. For whatever reason, Vinca seems to be plagued by fungal infections. Why I don’t know as most exotic plants don’t have these issues. Anyway, good news for people who like Vinca is that I have never known these fungal infections to kill off a Vinca but you will get very ugly plants until they regenerate- ahhhh, photos of Vinca plagued by fungal infections never quite seem to make it onto websites so I’ll take the liberty of describing what Vinca looks like when it is infected. Starting with Phomopsis livella, which is actually called Vinca Stem Blight, the fungus girdles the stem at the base turning the plant a host of very attractive “chocolate” colors as it kills off the foliage above ground but… never fear because in time the plant will regenerate. Botrytis cinerea is actually called Botrytis Blight. That fungus will leave Periwinkle leaves polka dotted with little black and brown dots everywhere- children love the dots but adults aren’t too thrilled with them because they get bigger and dot the leaves with little ¼ “ spots everywhere that are reminiscent of a plant having the chicken pox or something but… never fear because Botrytis Blight doesn’t kill your plant. The other fungi mentioned above are responsible for Vinca Canker, Vinca Dieback, and Vinca Leaf Spot, Vinca Leaf Curl, and Vinca Root Rot but… they wont kill the plant. One issue is that although the Vinca seems to be resistent and capable of rejuvenating itself, other plants that the fungal infections can spread to may not be so lucky. Such may be the case with Oaks. Take a look at this- http://www.oaksavers.net/restoring_oak.php
Research is underway to make the connection. I suspect that in the next few years we will ultimately learn that Vinca Stem Blight (Phomopsis livella) may ultimately be responsible for some types of Oak diseases resulting in the death of the Oak. I have many Oaks on my property as well as on the properties of my neighbors and although Vinca is pretty, it just isn’t worth the risk of possibly infecting Oaks. Incidentally, if/when this connection is made, then the Vinca will end up on my “bug up my butt” list.

If you ever do decide you want to get rid of Vinca, good luck. The chemicals that most effectively kill it are nasty (I’ll spare you the details) which leaves you with killing it off via solarization and most people don’t relish the thought of having to place sheets of heavy plastic over these plants for a few months to fry their brains out.

So, how’d I do Cheryl? Did I earn my keep this round? Seriously, if you love the plant you should plant it. I don’t see it as being as horrible as some plants people are buying.

The Bloodroot is a nice shade plant. I was given a double as a gift about 5 years ago and I know exactly where it is on my property. If you remind me this coming spring, I can take a photo of it for you. I’m very proud of it because it was a gift. There are plants out there that I would gladly pay $50 for but Bloodroot is not one of them regardless of whether it is a double or not. I am cheap and $50 can buy a lot of pretties for my yard.

If you dig up the double bloodroot and cut the red roots in pieces you can have many many more. Just cut in half or quarters and replant.

Equilibrium is right -- our lot is bordered on three sides with old, old trees, and on those three sides I've planted a variety of perennials. It's only the front yard that's icky -- there are two trees in the front yard (west) and with wooded areas north and south, sun, though hot and west, only comes through in patches. Between the shade and our industrious squirrels (another topic) the yard is quite a mess. In time, I hope to plant perennials borders in the front yard -- working around all the tree roots -- and eliminate much of the grassy area. You all have given me so much information -- I've downloaded your recommendations and have headed for the books. Thanks so much.

lol Sorry, Equil!! Didn't realize I'd get such an in-depth analysis!! Thank you, though! I'll definitely leave it in it's pot now...far far away from the 100-year old oak tree I was planning it for. ; )

Grenthumbs- I'm still interested in seeing your picture for curiousity's sake.

Butterfly- Sorry for the lousy recommendation. Give me time- I'll get better at this! ; )

OH! I'm so glad you said that, I took the pictures and then got busy and forgot about them.....sorry!
Here is a close up of a new patch I found just this morning...

close up...

a bunch of it,

sorry about all the leaves my leaf sucker upper is on the fritz, it figured I'll get the leaves when I mow.
And you can't really rake this stuff its very tangled, takes forever.

here is some more.....
notice I don't have much else in there, its getting smothered, this coming weekend and all summer I get to look at black plastic....wee, fun.