"RAINDEAR" wrote in message
...
in article , Rachel at
wrote on 4/14/05 1:29 PM:

But I'd like
to have a perennial or two at the wet end that come out on their own, and
survive, so the bed doesn't look so lopsided in the early spring.

celandine (wood poppy); euphorbia spurge (be warned...it DOES spread);
sweet
woodruff; wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens); MINT!!! mint LOVES water.
oh!! and some nice golden thread and jack-in-the-pulpit. oh, one mo
Impatiens capensis-orange (or pallida-yellow)...'cept that's an annual but
OH GOODNESS!!! it self-sows with a vengeance!! })

Thanks to you and the others for these ideas. Actually, the mint patch is
around a tree-stump 3 feet away from the bed in question, so I have no wish
to bring it into the bed. Nor anything else that spreads. As for
Jack-in-the-pulpit, I have another dampish part of the yard reserved for
unrestricted native-plant expansion (Virginia bluebells, bloodroot,
Dutchmen's britches, etc.). And Sweet Woodruff is off on the other side of
the house, spreading into an 8 x 20 area and beyond, so putting a little bit
of it in two square feet doesn't make sense. The Ligularias are interesting,
but only the 15" variety would be a possibility, since the ones that grow 4
or 5 feet high would be out of balance with the stuff at the other end of
the bed, and might even block 10 minutes of sun from reaching my basil,
which is not acceptable. ... The idea I like best is William's for a clump
of Japanese or Siberian Iris.