Hosta 'Halcyon'
$18.00The best blue hosta there is, and thick enough in the leaf that slugs mostly give up.
Wild Ginger
Asarum canadense
$15.001 gal33 on the bench
The native ground cover for dry shade under maples, where almost nothing else will go.
- ONTARIO NATIVE
- DEER RESISTANT
We don't sell online — plants travel badly and we'd rather you saw what you're buying. Ring 705-555-0126 and we'll hold it at the till for 48 hours.
About this plant
Dry shade under a mature maple is the hardest position in most Ontario gardens, and wild ginger is one of very few things that will actually colonise it.
Heart-shaped, slightly furry leaves in a low mat. The flowers exist but sit at ground level under the foliage and are pollinated by ants, so you will never see them unless you go looking.
It spreads by rhizome at a civilised pace — a metre or so across in five years. Not a thug.
Looking after it
- Water
- Weekly the first year, then it copes alone
- Soil
- Leaf mould. Do not remove the leaf litter
- Deer
- Genuinely ignored
- Note
- Not culinary ginger — do not cook with it
Plant it with
Ostrich Fern
$17.00Fiddleheads in May, a metre and a half of green architecture by July.
Serviceberry
$145.00A small native tree that earns its space four times a year — and the berries are worth eating.