@Shadegardener - Cindy - I'd love to see your 150 x 20ft shade garden. It must be magnificent. Majeste is one of the pulmonarias that performs well for me...I had another one (Samurai?) that was lovely but it was one season and gone.

@ssgardenener - glad your Jack Frost made it - Silver Heart was the other one I lost this season - must've been too too cold

@Rose 1656 - I will haul hoses in our country garden til about mid August then both the garden and I give up...by Labor Day the fall bloomers start to bloom and the gardens and I are friends again...plus I've got enough Sweet Autumn Clematis to make up for anything

I've just come back in from a 'weeding day' - played hooky from work.....tons more to do
Here's a old shot of my Shrub Border and the second is an old one of my shade garden (2008-look at that brunnera )

Catherine, I see a lot of mulch in your second pic. Just wondering did you change mulch last year?

I have heard people say that certain mulch have killed their otherwise healthy plants. They are putting toxic dye in the mulch or there are insects in some.

I only use a little mulch in my front flower gardens and I try to catch the expensive cypress stuff on sale because we have termites in our area and they love wood mulch. Most of my gardens get leaves and pine or cypress mulch but most of my gardens I try to use a plant ground cover.

ssgardener said:One of my variegated brunneras died this winter, and it only got down to around 5-10F. It was in a moist, shaded area.

I think the one I lost is 'Silver Heart,' and the surviving one is 'Jack Frost.'

I lost Silver Heart the first year. The only one that has survived for me is Jack Frost. As I said it love my yard because it self seeds.

Those are old photos Cinta...nothing changed really except we had a very hard winter. Plenty of snow cover but it didn't help I guess.

I've heard those same concerns about some bagged mulch....for plants (and pets). I've tried to get away from chips because I like re-seeding plants but today I wish some of these areas I was weeding had been heavily mulched....

Jersey - love the photos. Very peaceful. Kudos to you for playing hooky. I used to take a week of my vacation on the end of May just to garden and plant stuff. I'm not plagued with a ton of weeds in my backyard garden except for chickweed and a couple of other annual things unless the birds drop poison ivy seeds. My wilder lower garden is another story but I tend to let it go wild to a certain degree.
I do mainly the dark Heucheras - more success. I do have 'Southern Comfort' which seems to do okay.
I used to mulch with hard wood mini nuggets but 40 bags doesn't even cover half of the garden. DH used to buy it for me for Mother's Day. Now I use shredded leaves almost exclusively. I did a couple of bags of mulch around the edges of the front beds but that was all for show.

Shadegarden, I do the same thing with the leaves. I have enough leaves to cover the entire neighborhood. When I first moved in I had 11 trees dropped and I still have at least 30 trees around the house. The trees in the woods behind the house blow up to add to the leaves from the 30 trees and I have mounds and mounds of leaves.

Jersey I guess why I keep trying to figure out why they died other than the weather because we had more snow than we have ever had in 40 yrs and it was below 0 from Jan - March. It was a horrible winter for me too and the only thing I lost was the Coral Bells but that is nothing new. I loose most of them every year. I started only buying them if they are on sale and will not pay anymore than 4.00. So they are only the cost of a annual before I put my money down on them.

Brunnera is the worst garden plant I've ever tried to grow. I have one pitiful one that is in its 3rd year, but after this one finally croaks, I will not be replacing it. They can't take the heat here. There are new ones called 'Sea Heart' and so on that are supposed to be tougher, but I don't believe the claims.

I have never had one make it more then 2 years, overall it sounds like not many have done well with it. No more tries coming anytime soon for me.

@Cinta....we're in Northern IL our last 2 winters were the worst since 1969 according to DH. and we had a bad summer drought 2 years in a row. Looks like only a few here have had luck - especially with new varieties.

I'm with you on the heucheras although I have Citronelle that is doing great - season 2. A local grower sets up at the grocery and runs good sales and has quality plant material (bought Powis Castle artemesia this week @ 2/$4) so I tend to save my plant budget for specialty plants like the Jack Frost brunnera.....

The Heucheras do great here. The only time I lose them is when they get too much shade. They even stay colorful through the winter.

Clint - DD lived in Columbia for a while and your summer heat is brutal. Ugh. Maybe heat is the key to Brunnera failure as with some of the Heucheras. Are the current Brunneras developed in the NW like so many Heucheras?

I think it's heat too; however, the newer ones are claimed to be more resistant to the heat. I think they are called 'Sea Heart' and 'Silver Heart'.

I see so many people in zone 7 post pics of beautiful full mature Heucheras so I think they are breed for that zone. It sure is not for my winters. I am having great success growing them in pots and putting them against the house laying on their side.

Heuchera plants love it here. I think I prefer them to Brunnera even if It liked it here too. Lol.

I grow Brunnera macrophylla in a container and I am surprised it is enduring here. I guess our winters are mild enough for it. But it does hate the heat, so have to be always in shade, and have to give it frequent watering, since it is just too bone dry here. During summer it is not as vigorous since we go into the triple digit dry heat. It sure enjoys the mid 50's to low 70's nicely. Come mid fall to winter, it comes back better, I get the blooms in early Spring. The lowest temp we get is around 20 to 21F just for a few nights in winter.

I lost Heucheras..I think it got fried by our heat and got a bit underwatered. I may try it again one day, but not this year. With our ongoing drought, not going to add any new plants, just going to maintain what I have.

tarev - do you grow the species Brunnera? It sounds like it loves your pot. I started with that one and fell in love with the blue flowers and I was glad at the time that it was a tough plant. That being said, it has taken over a corner of the "wild" garden, acting like a real thug. It's on a dry slope and gets afternoon shade and seems to love it there (although I wish it didn't). Seedlings everywhere.

Hi Cindy, tag says just Brunnera macrophylla, so don't know if that is what is species. Lovely little blue flowers in early Spring. It sure is happier when it gets to rain and cool down more. I got it last May2013 just testing then if it will survive our onerous summers. So far with shade and keeping it moist helps a lot especially getting to water it ahead before the hot temps prevail for the day helps a lot.

Taken last 13Mar2015


Today, 07May2015 just making new leaves, done with the blooms already.

Shade or Traev can you post a pic? I love thugs. I would like to see what it looks like. Although my Jack Frost is quite the reproducer. I have had it about 6 yrs and I have 8 of them spread out through the gardens.

I just got 5 Alexander the Great Brunnera this year. They're in pots and growing fast. I'm going to try them up on the hillside and see how they do. I kinda hope they do take over!

My thug is the species - I think tougher than the named cultivars. And it looks just like Tarev's only big. They'll get 9 to 12 inches tall and just as wide and the leaves are hairy/scratchy. Be careful about the thugginess - they are very tough to dig up if you decide they're too thuggish. You can only pull the babies. After a year, it's a shovel. My unnamed variegated one doesn't throw off a lot of seedlings but I usually deadhead it. It will grow a "plain" section from time to time that I snip out.