Ten tough but beautiful plants for the perfect Alberta garden
By Mr. Tomato
1. Ground cover: Lamium galeobdo- lon spp. montanum. Attractive silver and green leaves stay green all winter with snow cover. Snapdragon-like yellow blooms in spring. This plant spreads quickly, prefers shade or part sun and creates a lovely woodland-like setting. Plant blue-flowering Jacob's Ladder (Polemonium caeruleum) and ferns among the lamium. Another Lamium galeobdo- lon, Herman’s Pride, has purple flowers and a more pointed leaf with a much more pronounced silver feature. This is a clumping plant that does not travel.
2. Texture plant: Water iris (Iris pseud- acorus). Spiky foliage all year that doesn't deteriorate in August like other irises. This water margin plant prefers wet conditions but will do well just about anywhere. Loves clay. Pretty yellow flowers in late spring. Excellent contrast plant in between mounds of other flow- ers.
3. Container plant: Nemesia ‘Blue Bird’. Rare blue colour, blooms profusely all summer and takes heavy frost in late fall without any effect. It remains sprightly when everything else has died or dete- riorated. Prefers full sun but takes part shade. Nemesia aromatica series comes in blue and white. The flowers are highly scented.
4. Climber: Engleman's Ivy has octo- pus-like feet that cling to anything, making it scale poles, stucco, brick, etc. without any support. Totally covers sides of houses, garages, etc. Brilliant red foli- age in the fall. Leaves look like Virginia Creeper, which has only tendrils and needs support. This plant only looks like Virginia Creeper which lacks the sucker- like pads and won’t climb without help. Virginia creeper also, well . . . creeps.
Lamium galeobdolon spp. montanum. 6 • Summer 2014
5. Snacking plant: Raspberries – July- bearing and fall-bearing – are the perfect snack food because you can't get reliable berries in stores because of their fragility. "Fall Gold" is the variety to plant for fall berries that are produced right through frost (peachy-coloured berries). The heavier the frost, the sweet- er the berries.
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