midsummer in the shade

I was driving up my driveway tonight after work and drove right past one of my bottlebrush buckeyes. I couldn't help taking it's picture, it was looking fabulous.
What a great plant, in case anyone needs a big sprawling mid-summer blooming shade-loving shrub. This one is planted in nothing more than the stone rubble alongside my driveway. It gets no supplemental irrigation other than what mother nature provides. I can't imagine how a plant this big can be surviving in such circumstances, but it seems to be doing just fine. I don't know if it will outgrow it's space at some point, but 10 years on, it's still doing fine. I just thought others with empty woodland space might want to check it out to see if it would work for you too.

I don't know if you remember my writing this, but you have the ONLY beautiful bottlebrush buckeyes I have ever seen. When I lived in Lake County, Illinois, on former farmland, native proponents would insist that we grow them, and put them around the community in full sun, and let me tell you, that was plant abuse. They looked hideous and bedraggled. You have that right plant right place thing down.

I am doing what you are doing with oakleaf hydrangeas.

Good Heavens but that is one GORGEOUS plant!!!!!!! I agree with Donna, you have that "right plant, right place" thing down!!

Thanks, guys. I agree he would look awful in full sun. Foliage as well as flowers. The plumes on my shrub are beginning to wilt now, so the show's about done for this summer. But prior to the flowers actually opening, the bloom season is extended for several weeks by the dramatic growth & unfurling of the flowers. Now it will sort of fade into obscurity. But now my Adina rubella has started flowering. The trick is to have an assortment of plants which can each take over the blooming job to keep the woodland show going. Admittedly, there are sometimes some lag times, but it's pretty surprising to see that there's usually something blooming.
My adina has odd 'sputnik' like flowers. They're hard to photograph (#1). There are actually a multitude of flowers, but I can't get more than 1 in focus at a time (#2). But I now realize I have no pictures of the foliage, which is pretty all summer. It's a fine narrow leaf with a striking shine to it. There's a part of a leaf seen in #3.

Those are blooms!?!? Wow, those are the coolest looking blooms I have ever seen!! I can see the sheen to the leaves in pics 2 and 3 pretty well, though you're right, it shows up best in #3. Would love a more far-away shot of it if you could, please. Get the big-picture sorta view...

I found a picture of more foliage from a couple weeks ago.
But it's hard to show the entire plant, since it's sort of splayed into about 3 parts over the years. I would guess the entire plant is 8-10ft across, but with big gaps in between each of 3 portions. It's in my woods (which means 'jungle'), so I haven't crawled in amongst the exuberance of weed/vine competition to see if it has layered, suckered, or is just sprawling on the ground. Which I guess tells you how tough it is, since I shamefully ignore it and yet it thrives without complaint.
Here is another shade-tolerant shrub which I love. Frankly, I'm not a super fan of variegation, but there's a variegated deutzia which is really pretty (d. gracilis variegata). Here it is adjacent to the contrasting bold foliage of one of my bottlebrush buckeyes. Though it flowers nicely, the white flowers are pretty much lost against the prominent white variegation, so I consider it mainly a foliage plant.
Next to the deutzia is a buddleia lindleyana. I love the flowers, which droop on long racemes this time of year. But it suckers annoyingly, so I have to keep yanking suckers to keep it from overwhelming everything around it.
All of these plants are along my shady wooded driveway. I've planted hakonechloa macra Aureola along the drive also. It's been maddeningly slow to try to get them to fill in, but here's what I have so far. I love it, but wish it would fill in faster!!!

Oh my, that Deutzia is Fantastic!!! But the Hakonechloa is what REALLY grabs my attention!! We sell those at work and I often have wondered how they look OUT of their pots and in a real-life setting. BEAUTIFUL!!!

Now, repeat after me: "I am a gardener, I have INFINITE patience..." < ;P heeheeheee

On the Hakonechloa, it will shoot out little offshoots in the spring -- you can gently tug them out and plant them in between your plants. They too will be slow to fill in -- but will help.

Perhaps I missed it but what is the plant in picture number 4?

Buddleia lindleyana

Interesting. It was hard to tell so close.

I have a love-hate relationship with it. Flowers can be beautiful and plentiful. Flowers for a long period. But suckers annoyingly.

Yeah I've never really been into butterfly bushes. The flowers are gorgeous but I don't care for the way the plant grows.