I think your best substitute for stachys might be a hardy geranium. Many to choose from, but the bigfoot geranium, Geranium macrorrhizum, and its cultivars might be best because of its thick weed suppressing foliage. One downside is that you may have to buy more of these than you would of a more spreading groundcover. Fun plant. Leaves have a lime soda or some say apple scent when crushed. You will get some decent fall color. One variety is variegated. I love these cranesbills. Truly these are great plants. Your only problem will be whether you like the flower color with your scheme. I find mine finish blooming before my coreopsis gets started, so that may not be a problem. You might also consider Heliopsis 'Helhan' a.k.a. Loraine Sunshine. Yellow bloom. Mine receives compliments for its leaf varigation, which is what made me think of this one I also think that the Hosta plantaginea idea would work. I pretty much limit myself to collecting fragrant hosta. All fragrant types trace their lineage to plantaginea. All rank very high for sun tolerance and really need sun for best fragrance. Many fragrant hostas have been Hosta of the Year--'Stained Glass', 'Guacamole', 'So Sweet', 'Fragrant Bouquet'. Hummingbirds love them, too! And my plain green ones get nearly full sun without missing a beat. And for something sort of opposite to hosta, have you given any thought to sedem? I'm just beginning to explore these guys, and am sort of lusting for a dark purple foliage variety--either 'Black Jack' or 'Postman's Pride'. As with most perennials, I'm sure they'd work best in a mass planting. Could really pick up on purple flowers and make any gold or yellows really stand out Hope that helps Wellspring

Hi, Finding this thread very interesting. I am in the Northeast and I had heard of flooding in the midwest, but didn't realize the southeast was having heat and drought conditions. So sorry to hear that. It seems to me, you normally have high heat, so it must be very hot if you are noticing it more than usual. Having spent some time in Florida, I just can't imagine what it is like in that heat, with no rain. As a matter of fact, I love the rain you get in Florida. Coming down in torrents and then stopping in a few hours and the sun is back out, with everything steaming. Just love that. We have also had drought this summer, but not even as much heat as we normally get in a growing season. My tomatoes are half the size they usually are and nothing happening with any of the warm season crops. So glad I decided to forgo the peppers this year. I have tried to add natives to the yard, and drought tolerant, low maintenance plants to the yard over the years and thankfully some of those plants did fairly well this year. That is not easy to do in the Northeast though. At least with the drought tolerant plants, like lavender. Usually drought tolerant plants prefer sandy soil and most of the northeast is clay. I try to offset that by raising many of my beds some and add compost to the beds. Then we have unpredictability to deal with. Last year, I swear I might have set the sprinklers twice the whole growing season. Lots of rain and frequently enough that I barely had to water anything. The drought tolerant plants in the yard didn't look as good as they do this year? The grass looked the best it had ever looked. Huge amounts of mildew etc though. This year, I have never seen zinnias so clean of mildew. Even the tomatoes are much better in that respect than usual. We are really pressed to water everything this year. We had a total water ban for the month of June and nothing was looking good at all. We could use a watering can but that was all, so I tried to give everything a little drink, but I just couldn't do everything. Most things survived until we were back on rationed water, every other day. My yard does not look very good right now either. The grass is brown, and I have lost some plants but most things will survive for next year. The full sun area seems to be doing the best actually. The shade area..is near tree roots and even running the sprinkler for an hour and a half, the next day the hydrangeas and hosta can start drooping by late afternoon again. What is doing well... Butterfly Bush...had some yellowing leaves but bloomed fine Pennisetum Hamelin grasses look excellent Zinnia don't seem to mind at all Coneflowers did ok but between the dryness and the critters, they have not had a blooming or increasing year at all. Dianthus did fine with some supplemental water Iris like the dryness and seem fine Cosmos still looking okay..with some supplemental water Lavender did pretty well too Penstemon did well and produced a bumper crop of seeds Ninebark shrubs don't seem to have been bothered at all...Dart's Gold and Seward's Summer Wine. Knock Out Rose...didn't do as well as last year, but looking respectable. Foliage looks good and did get bloom Meidland white rose...surprised at how well this one is doing. It was planted in late June in a heat wave when we were still having drought and a water ban. So I had to shade it for 10 days straight and water daily with a watering can. It managed without noticing really. Slowed down it's bloom for about 3 weeks, but now is pushing out new stems and plenty of buds and the foliage looks really really great. Shasta Daisy seedlings added in June, barely noticed the drought. No yellowing leaves, blooming intermittently in their first year. The short varieties of Becky and Snowcap, just love them. In that same bed with the Meidland, plus lantana, penta, dianthus, silver mound artemesia, portulaca, a grass, some million bells. Not one plant there has shown any sign of stress and has gotten less water than the rest of the garden. Little bits of watering can water when it was really hot and the sprinkler was set twice all season. I am hoping to plant the same next year. It is a full sun bed from sun up to sun down. Tropical Hibiscus, Dahlias, Four OClocks, Nierembergia Purple Robe in pots...all seem to be doing fine with an occassional miss on the watering schedule. Hosta Guacamole...wow, what a surprise this was! It took the drought better than some of the native drought tolerant plants and it is in quite a bit of sun. No wilting, one little brown edge on one leaf and with very little supplemental water, it sailed through and bloomed and grew three times larger than last year. California Poppies...my first time growing them. Did great! Epimediums are practically indestructible in the shade. Nepeta Walker's Low..wow, what a trooper that plant is. LOVE it! What hasn't done as well... Hydrangea wilting every other day, needing most of the supplemental watering. Love them and will keep watering them by hand if I had to. Oakleaf Hydrangea, especially, has brown edges on all the leaves and looks horrible. Need to mulch it heavier next year and hopefully put a soaker hose around the base or something. Surprisingly, Asclepias and Joe Pye Weed in their second year, showed wilting and yellowing leaves with the lack of water. They showed more of a problem then the Knock Out Rose and the Butterfly Bush near them. Hosta Frances William, hates the heat and drought. Looks awful Hosta Patriot was a small plant that barely came back this year and what did come back just disappeared at some point. Dicentra King of Hearts..it was a very pretty healthy looking plant that I added in June to a very shady border, and I watered and watered and watered it because it was so dry looking all the time and it kept losing leaves. I can barely see a little remnant of it. It is supposed to be one of those dicentras that bloom all summer. Sambucus shrubs...the dark and the light one, did not like this weather this year and looked great last year. Viburnum Maresii..wilts at the first sign of drought Ferns...had a tough year, although 'Ghost' seemed to do better than the others. Heucheras had a rough year and none of them look very good. Sedums, don't really look their best this year, surprisingly, I don't know if it is the drought or they just need dividing. In the containers, nicotiana didn't fare well at all. Sorry to be so long...hoped something I might have to report might help someone trying to decide what to try next year. :-) pm2

Sage and lavender like to be pruned, but not down to the woody parts. If you prune the green (nonwoody) parts 2-3 times a year, you can maintain a smaller size. Once they get overgrown, you can take hardwood or softwood cuttings and start new plants. Spring is usually the best time to strike new cuttings, but I am going to experiment with taking cuttings this month. I cut my Berggarten sage back only once last year -- reduced it by half -- and this spring it is larger than before, with extra-large leaves! I find it hard to prune back the lavender enough, since it is in bloom practically all summer and I hate to remove the flowering stems, but when I do I find it does much better and stays a manageable size without those ugly dried-out woody areas. This week I will harvest some lavender buds and trim back the largest one. In my climate (northern Calif.), I've seen the best results (nicest form, looks good all year) when the lavenders are pruned back hard 2-3 times a year. I wanted one plant, so I dug up 4 puny dried-out 2-inch-high lamb's ears from someone's dry soil, coddled them until their roots were developed, and in my compost-rich soil, they have taken off. I gave away and pruned back at least 80 to 90 percent in the fall and winter, and still they have reclaimed their space from last summer. They are now in bloom, 3 feet high, and cover at least 9 square feet. In containers, they tend to be self-limiting. I haven't grown these in pots, but I had some yarrow, thyme, and oregano in one of those 12-inch shallow patio pots for a couple years. They stayed the same size. When I planted them in the garden, the Moonlight yarrow really took off -- I divided it into 4 clumps the first year, and then divided one of those clumps into 24 plants a year later, and still have to give away lots more -- it's crowding out the gilia and echinacea and chamomile and thyme. The oregano has stayed in one nice clump, but I find smaller seedlings here and there.

'Provence' is a form of hybrid lavender (lavandin) and probably one of the largest growing culitvars, often extending up to 4' tall in bloom. May not be the best choice for along a walkway because of its impressive size. Similar hybrid culitvars (Lavandula x intermedia) get to be close to that in size. English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia, is a much more restrained shrub and available in very compact or even dwarf forms, like 'Hidcote', 'Munstead', 'Blue Cushion' or 'Thumbelina Leigh' and these very dense, compact growing cultivars might be a better choice for along a walkway. Spanish lavender, Lavandula stoechas, tends to be less of a rounded, mounding shrub and more of a sprawler. But it has unsual looking flowerheads and tends to be very long blooming. ALL lavenders need annual pruning to remain looking good but eventually most will also develop that very gnarly, woody interior despite routine pruning and lose their visual appeal. Most lavender growers will replace their plants somewhere in the 5-7 year period. In your climate, it is not to late to plant now. You just do not get cold enough for that to be a threat to any lavender :-) In my climate, while still very mild in winter, it is best to plant in spring simply because of our heavy winter rainfall and often very wet soils. Good drainage, especially in winter or during the rainy season, is critical!!