Blue Boy, Blue Girl, China Boy, China Girl Hollies

I think you'll find that all the Rhododendrons from the U of Finland will be hardy here and into zone 3 (but I don't know how far).

Wintergreen Korean Boxwood has smaller leaves than Green Mountain or Chicagoland, but it will be hardier. GM and Chic are both crosses of Korean boxwood and the less hardy Buxus sempervirens(that has larger and nicer looking leaves than Korean). Wintergreen was chosen for its good green color throughout the winter (Duh!). Most Korean boxwood will have a brownish tinge in winter, then back to green in spring.

I'm done adding rhodies and azaleas because the fussing with soil. Aglo has been probably my best performer though the color is a little bright for so early in the season. Dororthy Swift, a yakushiamanum hybrid, is second best, (Ken Janneck, another yaku hybrid, died) Mikelli has been ok, Haaga has winter burn often, Pojola's Daughter died.

Paxtisma canbyi. aka ratstripper or cliff green did well for years, though had some dieback last year. A plus here is it's native to limestone soils.

Boxwoods have done great here. I'm always adding more.

Mahonia aquilegifolium lived but didn't thrived, M. repens would be better but a little boring.

I'm tempted by huckleberries, bearberry and an evergreen barberry High Country Nursery is selling.

One of my favorite evergreen perennial is Carex 'Ice Dance'. It does need some clean up in spring but looks amazining fresh until buried by snow (and it's taller then many evergreen perennials.

Ted

Leftwood: Tell me more about those hollies, how big they are, do they have winterburn.

Ted: I don't fuss much with soil at pH of 7. Add some sulfur once every other year.

I'll look into the Carex.

I've grown blue girl/blue boy holly for a few years quite successfully. In fall I mulch some snow around the base and then carefully place a box over top. Basically by mid-winter they are in a snowdrift surrounded by snow. The plants have produced a few berries but their rate of growth has been slow but steady. So, at least here, they are maybe 18 inches tall after 4 years.

Green Mountain boxwood survived fine for me (though in spot right in front of a low deck which gets completely buried in snow for winter). I removed it only because my puppy was going through a "chew everything phase".

Yucca filementosa seems to come through winter fine, then severely burn after the snow melts. I guess the sun is strong but the ground is still frozen. Still, I think of this as a hard to kill plant that repairs itself each year, and by July looks fairly decent.

Vinca minor 'illumination' survived a few years in a sheltered spot before dying. Still, I am trying again. Maybe it was one of those "cold snap without adequate snow cover" things in early winter or early spring.

A perennial that has leaves that stay green all winter is bergenia cordifolia (at least where it gets good snowcover). One spring someone asked me if I just planted it because the entire flower bed was bare or all the plants were brown and dried up but here was this bright green plant looking great.

Glen

A friend near me has the China Boy and Girl, I have Blue Boy and Blue Girl. They grow in natural glacial sand-gravel mixed half and half with a half and half mix of native loam and spagnum peat. Cypress mulched. On the north side of a hill under a high oak canopy, they get no winter or early spring sun, ideal for any broadleaf, and I never have winter burn. The girls porduce fruit well, although they are getting overtaken now by the adjacent 25 year old Chamaecyparis pisifera "Snow" variant. (Not a true Snow. That's why it is so large.) You are looking due south in the pic. If you could see them, the holly would be just to the left(east) outside the photo. Mom is 5'1", and the path where she stands is sunken into the hill.

I really like my Arum Italicum all winter long. They are planted up close to the foundation and do not stay covered with snow- so I get to see the variegated foliage through the winter.
I also have some hens and chicks that become exposed throughout the winter that stay quite plump and full and green- as well as some other sedum!
It is nice to see a promise of green in all this white....

Has anyone tried pieris, Japanese Andromeda? It's hardy in zone 4b so you may be able to get by with extra mulch. Also it can be propagated by fall cuttings so all would not be lost if it doesn't make it. Needs acid soil and light shade like rhodies.

We have a 5-year-old pieris japonica that took a while to become established but has had very little winter damage the past two years. It blooms well and even produced viable seed this past fall.

Girard's Rainbow leucothoe has demonstrated remarkable hardiness and is becoming a very nice specimen in a short time--it has absolutely no protection from wind or winter sun and the leaves are perfect despite our many below zero days.

Though they can be tricky, you might consider trying kalmias. The leaves are glossy and their small size is a nice contrast to the larger leaves of the rhodies, and their early summer flowers are a great bonus.

Kate