Still, other species are on schedule, and those fooled by the weather should be back to normal in 1999. It's ironic, then, that most of us are also impatient. NOW, this weekend, not this fall when mail order deliveries resume. So I spoke with Susan Greener, perennial expert at English Gardens, about late-blooming shade plants that are available locally. Combine it with a late-blooming monkshood such as Aconitum x bicolor , A. Carmichaelii or A. napellus and you not only add color but a taller vertical shape to go with bear's breeches' coarse, mounded look.
Japanese anemones are great for showy flower in the shade, too.
Turtlehead is one of my favorites. It's a snapdragon relative, native to moist Michigan woods. Chelone lyonii blooms in late July or early August with spikes of pink. C. glabra blooms white. I like pink turtlehead with the ferny, later-blooming white bugbane, Cimicifuga simplex .