I have a friend who has a quite large, dry, mostly-shade bed. It originally was five trees, a few rhodies, and pretty much nothing else but vinca. We planted perennials into the bed amongst the vinca, and in their third year they are doing great for the most part. We planted hostas, lilies, lady's mantle, heucheras, astilbes, columbines, dicentra, and lobelia, to name some. Each spring, and then again maybe once in the late summer, we just rip out some vinca from around the perennials to give them a bit of room. It looks great, and the vinca is easy to rip out. The one thing that is more of a battle is that in an empty area we added lamium White Nancy. We think it looks fantastic where it meets and mixes with the vinca, but the vinca does kind of overpower it, so that area takes more vigilance to keep the lamium going. :) Dee

I assume from your plant choices that it is full sun or at least a good deal of afternoon sun, and it isn't moist, did I guess right?? If so how about creeping thyme, which is suppose to hold light foot traffic. Or wintergreen, I feel in love with this plant a long time ago. It is evergreen and in the fall it produces berries that critters eat. Lovely ground cover!! DO NOT get chameleon, that plant is horrid and it is so aggressive it will take over your pond. Creeping jenny aurea looks lovely on rocks, but it will need to be kept moist and I have never seen seeds for it.

Have you considered allysum? I know it isn't a perenial, but it does reseed itself quite easily, and comes in a variety of colors. There is also viola. I have a variety in my garden, I believe its "King Edward." It is a velvety dark purple with bright yellow centers. It spreads quickly, (its even spilling into the lawn!) but I am not sure if this is from reseeding or root runners. Either way it's beautful. I have mine growing in full sun with no problems, even during dry, hot weather. They started blooming in the spring and are still going strong.

What about Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis)? I see it in a few catalogues. My wild plant book says it likes moist woodlands, but it grows wild around here in dry, sandy, poor soil and always amongst the trees. I love it because you get the foiliage, then the flower and then great fall color with the red berry clusters and the leaves turn red as well. I'd say it would be low maintenence once its established, but by the sounds of things it takes a while for it to get there. It seems to form a nice carpet, although I've never grown it in the garden, we just have a lot of it growing wild around here. I might try transplanting some this year to go under my shrubs in the garden . This link to another GW forum had some propagation info. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/natives/msg080038167578.html?9 Here is a link that might be useful: Bunchberry