Top shade perennial selection

With its gorgeous mounding habit and stunning blossoms resembling orchids and other outstanding attributes, Variegated Toad Lily, Tricyrtis, makes an excellent selection for the shade garden. Let’s start with its foliage. Beautiful green leaves edged in gold grow in a graceful aching ladder pattern that forms into a large clump. In late summer and fall, when the shade garden desperately needs flowers, Variegated Toad Lily magically produces ethereal orchid-like flowers of white with purple speckles along the whole stem. The flowers appear in every leaf axil on the cascading stems. You will want to experience the blossoms up close; the remarkable markings are Mother Nature’s best work.

Although looking like a fussy grand princess, this graceful plant is tough, thriving in neglected shade garden areas. It quickly grows under trees in dry shade, where little else will grow. Plant Variegated Toad Lily in the woodland garden, under trees, in formal and informal settings. Once established, little care is needed. Drought tolerant. Deer and rabbits leave it alone. A reliably hardy perennial that thrives for years. People thought its flowers resembled a speckled toad, hence its common name.

Plant in shade or part shade. Although drought tolerant, keep well watered when the plant is getting established, when setting up buds and blooming, and during dry spells.