THE plant for dry shade--Geranium macrorrhizum--big Root Geranium. Semi evergreen, handsome groundcover, highly deer resistant, easy to control, very attractive with late spring bloom and no dead heading, dividing or other attention required. What more could you want? Alternate--Epimedium sulphureum--slower to fill in, must be cut back in late winter, but very attractive and has early bloom. If you garden in deer country, as I do, there is very little point in planting plants that deer love. It's a losing battle. And while it is true that starving deer will eat anything, there is a huge range of plants for both sun and shade that they generally have very little interest in. If your yard has mostly unappealing plants, they won't hang out there much. That said, I ALWAYS spray a new plant with a good repellant so if some young thing tries it, their first experience is YUCK! They spread the word. And having said all that, yes, I do have a few plants that deer will eat, and I do spray those. But they are very few, so keeping up with the spraying is not onerous and doesn't break the bank. However, I have NO hostas, yews, or tulips--the ones that say "Free Lunch".

Stachys byzantina 'Helen von Stein' (big ears) is my favorite and it has never bloomed. The smaller ones bloom and then they (to me) are a mess to deadhead and keep neat looking compared to big ears. Here's one of mine with a rose campion pretending to bloom out of it. :-) Thyme is also good. If you like lime/bright, the spirea 'Limemound' is a great little thing when used as a companion with plants of blue foliage/blooms. I have it beside a nepeta. I wish I could send you some of my creeping perennial heliotrope 'Azure Skies' as it blooms not stop from spring until frost. A great groundcover that resembles verbena. Totally deer and rabbit proof. It even floats across my stream and can take full sun or partial shade. A few plants and you can keep taking cuttings to create as much as you want.

I've tried Astilbe chinensis which is more drough resistant than A. arendsii with no success, so ligularias wouldn't stand a minimal chance there. Now when you mention it, I recall planting L.przhewalskii (the most tough of all of them) there and moving it somewhere else in a couple of months. Yes, it's shady, but shade is open, not a dark-dark. Place is under canopies of very tall limbed up maples, oaks and ashes. Buddleia davidii less likely will bloom there and I don't think it's too attractive not in a bloom, but you reminded me about my B. alternifolia which need a better place than where it is and might even bloom there given her spring bloom time. Not very attractive plant, though.

Bboy, thanks for the "myth" link - some very interesting ideas on her page listing all the "myths". (I wanted to know what the first myth was, so . . .) Yes, there are some incredibly cold tolerant yuccas. I lived in Nebraska before moving here and had some beautiful yuccas which survived at least one episode of -40 F. Gardening was a little more challenging there, needless to say.