Hey everyone,
I'm having a failure of imagination here, we're re-routing some storm drains and I know it will change the landscape a bit. I'd like to help minimize erosion as much as possible.
I'm looking for something that will get big (six feet or more would be great), grows very fast, and will do well in wet, deep shade. Rhodos would be perfect for the area, really prefer to have something that would establish itself quickly. I have some petasites and boggy plants that are shorter to fill in the area but would love a large focal point.
thanks in advance for suggestions!!!
Suggestions for downspout area
Wonder if castor bean plants would work in your shade. Cannas would love the boggy soil, and they grow quickly. Variegated shell ginger (Alpinia zerumbet) would also work, but I don't know how fast it grows. You might have to grow the ginger in pots because I don't believe it would be root hardy for you.
Ornamental grasses work really well on slopes. You might want to try tufted hair grass (Deschampsia cespitosa) or perhaps Hakonechloa 'Aureola' with its golden flowing shape to perhaps contrast with large-leaved hostas.
Swamp sunflower gets to be around 12', as does Joe Pye weed. Not sure of the shadiness of those, though.
i was thinking about a banana but not sure how much shade they could take i know they love water lol
Cannas love water but they would only be there in the warm months. For an evergrteen shrub you might want to consider the Leucothoe, they do not mind wet feet, they are fast growers and I think their arching branches are interesting.
Thanks everyone for the suggestions, we ended up routing the pipe a bit further down than originally thought, so it solved the problem. I did find this list from NCSU that I thought I'd pass on, in case anyone else ran into the same problem:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/quickref/shrubs/shrubs-wetareas.html
Leucothoe is listed, good call ardesia! Luckily the area the pipe goes into is full of boxwoods, also on the list. We ended up drilling holes in the bottom of the pipe so now the rainwater can irrigate all the plants along the fenceline...kind of a modified "rain garden". I did find researching all of this to be a great learning experience, and now I am considering starting a rain garden in another area of the yard that gets soggy after rain. In case anyone else has similar drainage issues, rain gardens might be something to look into, generally I try to plant to the landscape, so they make perfect sense for the wetter areas. There's a lot of info out there, but here is one link :
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.dmgov.org/departments/pr/images/rain_garden.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.dmgov.org/departments/pr/ProjectsandEducation/rain_gardens.htm&usg=__fPeBayosciWli-sUpxzlyfBE6-0=&h=298&w=409&sz=70&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=JHC1VDaV8exXXM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drain%2Bgarden%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX
I love Leucothoe! It's a very forgiving plant with a beautiful "flowing" shape, and multiple shades of green. I think it's grossly underutilized---plan to start propogating some this spring.