Common name:Blue Spire Russian Sage
Botanical name:Perovskia 'Blue Spire'

'Blue Spire' is a selection of perovskia that grows about 3 to 4 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide (though it will grow larger if over-watered). New wood is white and fuzzy; leaves are a soft green to grey-green and finely cut, giving it an airy appearance. Flower spires of fuzzy, lavender blue flowers begin in June and continue through the summer months. Useful in the perennial or shrub border, with ornamental grasses, and as a cut flower.

Common name:Blue Oat Grass
Botanical name:Helictotrichon sempervirens

Blue oat grass is a striking ornamental grass with blue foliage and a clumping habit. It grows 12 to 18 inches tall and wide. Its showy flowers are 1 to 2 feet above the foliage. Is evergreen in mild winters. This plant looks good alone as well as in mass plantings. The blue oat grass likes dry hill sides and is drought tolerant.

Common name:Hardy Dwarf Broom
Botanical name:Genista lydia

A profusion yellow, pea-like flowers completely smother hardy dwarf broom in the spring. The plant has distinctive cascading evergreen stems that mold beautifully around boulders and drape gracefully over ledges. It is a slow but steady grower, putting on 3 to 5 inches of growth at the tips of the branches each spring, eventually forming an impressive groundcover-like shrub. Nice for use on hot, sunny slopes when planted close together on 18-inch centers. Eventually grows 12 inches tall and up to 4 feet across.

Common name:Rose Glow Barberry
Botanical name:Berberis thunbergii 'Rose Glow'

'Rose Glow' is a cultivar of Japanese barberry, with a lovely upward, arching habit giving it a graceful form. It grows slowly to about 3 to 6 feet tall and 4 to 7 feet wide. New leaves emerge a rose-pink mottled with bronzish to purplish-red splotches, giving the new foliage a pinkish cast. Leaves mature to a rich red, and fall color is bright red. Small yellow, bell-shaped flowers in spring are followed by shiny red, torpedo-shaped berries in the fall that persist into winter and are loved by birds. A great accent in the shrub or foundaton border, or as a hedge.

Common name:Catmint
Botanical name:Nepeta x faassenii

Catmint makes soft, grey-green, rounded mounds from 10 to 24 inches high, depending on variety. Most will be wider than tall. This perennial has lavender blue flowers from late spring to early summer, though if you shear off the first flowers, it will frequently bloom again later in the summer. Different varieties have slightly different bloom times. Leaves are attractive, crinkled blue-grey and are aromatic.

Common name:Fountain Grass
Botanical name:Pennisetum alopecuroides

Fountain grass is a group of warm-season, clumping grasses with graceful forms and early plumes. Foliage is fine-textured and green, with the leaves 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide and up to 30 or so inches long. The form is dense, upright, and mounded, growing from 1 to 3 feet tall and wide, and a little taller while in bloom. Fountain grass tend to bloom before Miscanthus and Panicums, usually by mid-July. Flowers are fox-tail-like and plump, and range in colors from white, cream, pinks, to nearly black. Flowers tend to shatter, but foliage persists into winter.