Part 1 of a 4 part series:  Winners, Losers, Worth the bother, and "Buddy, your're on probation"

My winners are:  veronica, asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed), gaillardia (blanket flower), Lobelia cardinalis, sedum, aster, and astilbe.

Veronica has good colors - blue, white and pink.  It does not spread and has a shape that makes it easy to weed around - you won't spend all of your time yanking out grass from around this plant.   After it blooms, it looks good.  It has a positive presence in the border even past bloom.   This violet-pink veronica is shown in front of  the chartreuse flowers of lady's mantle - a good color combination.  I am really fond of the blue variety but don't have any blooming right now.

Asclepias tuberosa (there is a picture in my first post) and gaillardia are superb for their color - brilliant clear orange (butterfly weed "asclepias tuberosa"), and red-orange and a deeply saturated yellow (blanket flower "gaillardia").  I use them in my "hot" garden - they can stand up to a brilliantly sunny day.  They are good with just about all other hot colors, and do well with clear, strong blues (complementary colors always balance a color scheme) such as with many delphinium.

Lobelia cardinalis is a tall, moisture loving plant with  clear, gorgeous red flowers (picture with hummingbird in a previous post).  Hummingbirds love them, and I love hummingbirds, so I make sure that I have them in the back of my border.

Sedum and asters are great because they flower at the end of summer and well into the fall.  They look good before they flower - thy have a nice shape that can make a solid statement in the border.

Astilbe are excellent in the shade garden.  Their flowers are light colors - soft pinks and soft whites, nothing strident - that you can see in a shady spot.  Even if they did well in the sun, they would not be appropriate - their soft coloration would get washed out.  Astilbe has feathery, almost fern-like foliage.  The flower looks a bit like that of filipendula.  I have a pink and a white variety separated by asters.  I have liriope in front of the astilbe, and hosta, tree peony, and holly behind it in this photo.