The columbines will hold their foliage all season long. It depends upon location though. Usually the foliage is more diminutive later in the season and it does start to turn reddish.

After they are done blooming, and the birds have eaten the seeds, I will clip off the taller bloom stalks. I have watched birds, clip off a seed head and tip it back to let the seeds roll into their beaks. Its fun to watch.

I've been growing a few test plots of shade hearty natives, trying to figure out which ones will hold their foliage all season long versus which ones are ephemeral. This is site dependent... for example, jack in the pulpits are ephemeral in my yard, but they hold their foliage all season long in my Mom's yard.

My advice would be to try a few plants, see what does well and what you like and then expand from there.

So far, I like the wild geraniums and big leaf aster, for some lower clumping, shade tolerant natives that has foliage all season. (Others that you may want to try, that I have had some success with include: zig zag goldenrod, cardinal flower, thimble weed, foam flower)

I thought jacob's ladder was promising, but its been pretty diminutive... blooming nicely in the spring, and has leaves until fall, but its been sparse. It might fill in a few years though...

Neat story, joe! Any specific species of bird?...sounds like chickadee-type behavior. They crack me up constantly.

Good companions to columbines in a shady spot would be cardinal flower, lobelia cardinalis. The columbine will attract the early to mid-birds and the lobelia will catch the mid-to late hummers. I also like astilbe, although the hummers don't care about it.

The great thing about columbines is that you can also simply just leave them alone, especially if they're in a naturalized setting. They'll most likely self-seed and return in greater numbers (like the Sandpeople).

Bad joke, sorry... =)

Thanks for the suggestions. Joepyeweed, your yard sounds like heaven :)

The birds eating the columbine seeds were goldfinches.

I have one bed of native columbine where I planted them in the back. After the flowers fade and I either collect or scatter the seeds and cut them down the Salvias in front take over and bloom the rest of the summer right up to fall. I use Salvia greggii and Salvia coccinea Lady in Red in front of the columbine. In another damper shadier spot I have Monarda Jacob's CLine in front of the columbine and then a low border of Lady in red in front of the Monarda. Monarda in that bed takes over shortly after the columbine is done.

Penny