Hi greengardener, First thing you should do is familiarize with the friendly and knowledgeable folks at the Winter Sowing Forum. Seeds can be sown (almost)any time of year but Winter Sowing has some great benefits that can help anyone grow (amost anything) successfully from seed. Second item: Don't over amend that bed by your butterfly bush. Both it and the plants you want to put there are happier in less fertile soil; most of them are meadow and/or plains plants and Very adaptable to poor soils. A light mulch after you can tell the seedlings apart from the weedlings will work best; and I would suggest you wait til early spring next year (just when the soil starts warming. Cheers and Happy Gardening! Here is a link that might be useful: Trudi's WS website

All foliage habits should do well for you. Daylily foliage often turns brown/dies back after bloom, so late blooming varieties should have the best foliage until late in the season. Consistent re-bloomers will probably do also. You will have to cut scapes after bloom to prevent the dead scape look. Ed

Asclepias speciosa is extremely invasive in a garden bed. Roots as thick as your thumb in every direction. I'm in z3, if you lived here I would advise against growing it unless you lived on an acreage where you could give it plenty of room. I had to eradicate it from my garden it was such a thug (and a jolly time I had trying to do it). Grows in large patches on the prairie here. John - my experience is many native prairie plants are invasive in my city garden. Several others I've had to remove from my garden or work hard at containing - Oenothera caespitosa, Sphaeralcea coccinea, Glaux maritima, Rumex venosus, Solidago missouriensis, Artemisia ludoviciana .

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. I finally have it done - maybe not what will stay there "forever", but it's a start for this year at least! Kind of a long story how I ended up with what I did: - I traded someone locally for 5 divisions of Avocado - they were rough, hail stormed, and two of the divisions were tiny with only 1 root so I doubt they will make it. - Then I decided not to use those 5 Avocado after all since I thought it would be a while (if ever) before I liked the look of them, so I went to the nursery and they had 3 amazingly full and vibrant Stained Glass hostas, so I bought those. - In the end I used the 2 best Avocados on the end of the group, and the 3 Stained Glass in the middle. I may divide the Stained Glass in a couple years if I decide I want all 5 to match. Thank you all for the feedback - I am going to take it to heart in other ways. I couldn't find Squash Casserole anywhere locally (or Sea Sunrise), but if I see it I will try it (in the area to the right) after such good recommendations I want to see what it does! Or maybe some day I'll do a mail order - there are so many types that I'm sure I'll never get locally. :-) I also want to try Great Expectations, but will only try one since they sound like they can be touchy, and I'll wait until I find one at the nursery that looks like a nice starter - what they had yesterday was tiny and I just didn't see spending the money on it yesterday. Thank you all and happy hosta-ing!