Online Nurseries 2001 - Avant Gardens
From all accounts, this is a tough plant for tough places, tolerating, when established, alkaline, heavy, sandy, dry or poor soils, heavy shade, air pollution, and severe pruning. It has small, but very sharp thorns, making it useful for a barrier planting. In addition to all these marvelous attributes, this variegated form will light up that dark, shady spot. The leaflets are variously edged or blotched with creamy white. It's said to not be quite as vigorous as the species - a trait normal in variegated forms, reaching eight by ten feet tall and wide (2.4 - 3 x 2.4 - 3 m).
The common name comes from the five (there can be seven) divisions of each leaf. It's a native of Japan and rated hardy to USDA zone 4. It prefers shade to part shade in hot climates - just the ticket for my garden - bambi won't get through this one!
It produces umbrels of small, greenish-white flowers in late spring and early summer and, sparsely, small black berries.
Hardy Perennials
Avant Gardens has such a lovely list of perennials. I'd selected twice as many as I actually have space to tell you about.
My garden has self-sowing colonies of the common foxglove, Digitalis purpurea ranging from white to purple. I've also got the reliably perennial D. lutea, but I've long wanted to add Digitalis ferruginea, the rusty foxglove.
In the hot climate shady garden, foxgloves are invaluable for adding that spiky height to the border, taking the place of the magnificent delphiniums who loathe and despise our weather.
Native to southeastern Europe and central Asia, D. ferruginea is rated hardy from USDA zones 4 to 10, excepting for those very humid parts of the southern end of its range.
The common name comes from the rust colored veins in its pale yellow flowers, giving them a copper-tan overall appearance. This is subtle coloring which will meld well with myriad of schemes that tend toward the warm end of the spectrum.
Given good conditions, the spikes will reach five feet (1.52 m) in height.
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