Oh, duh. I left out one of the most important things - light! It gets some pretty good direct sun in the afternoon/evening, but it's not full sun due to the trees on both sides of this north-south street.

Echinacea and digitalis are two that occur to me off the bat. Possibly shasta daisy, depending on how much sun. Rudbeckia. Maybe some oriental poppies. A hardy geranium. A hardy hibiscus. Hosta.

Thanks for the suggestions. My wife didn't go for rudbeckia when I suggested them. The shasta daisies might be a win, though. We have some foxglove in the backyard and so far I'm not a big fan. Maybe I could find a variety that struck my fancy. It appears to be a biennial requiring some help in reseeding, though, right?

The poppies and hibiscus are definitely a possibility. We already have a large stand of geraniums right around a stump in the back, so we might want to try something different.

But no hosta. Sorry. I hates 'em. ;)

(Oh, and I think any bleeding hearts would get burned. We have some planted in the northwest inset corner of our house and they love it there. This area would definitely get more sun than that.)

None of the foxgloves I've ever grown needed any help to reseed, but that may just be me. A few varieties are perennial, d. grandiflora and mertonensis come to mind.

What about some daylilies, yarrow, coreopsis, sedum, catmint, columbine....

The giant snowbank actually helps my plants overwinter a little better - it acts as insulation so you can actually sometimes get away with some warmer zone plants.

Thanks again for the suggestions. We MAY plant some lilies, but right now we already have a ton in different areas (the entire north side of our house is daylilies) so we may be lily-ed out. Possibly some pink or white asiatic ones. Good to hear about the snowbank. I thought that might be the case, but the lateness of it melting worried me. Last year we got a lot of snow and it wound up coming up to the bottom of the mailbox after plowing. Melted early, though.

I have some sedum that I'm planing on planting. My wife loves columbine so it's good to hear it would work out there.

Most areas, ivy is a pest that should be declared noxious and I wouldn't plant it. I would look instead at (I don't check zones, so you'll have to) pachysandra, epimedium, ajuga, or asarum. Or whatever else your local nursery has in stock. Sedums might be fine, not sure if it will be too wet for them.

Irises are interesting in a flower bed because of the way they spread. They aren't really good neighbours with other plants, unless it is something like shasta daisy that will insinuate itself anywhere it can throw a feeler, like into the middle of an iris patch. If you want low maintenance, you could do worse than just irises interspersed with shastas.

Irises and peonies bloom together for me (peonies go a bit longer), and then the show's over. Daisies bloom later. Visit the garden centre throughout the season to see what they have in stock for that time. But whatever you go for, look for the late-blooming varieties.

In addition, ground covers can become so packed that they suffocate perennials. So if you plant both, your maintenance includes keeping patches open for the perennials.

KarinL

I'm 150 miles and a half hardiness zone north of you - and I don't plant my street facing boulevard simply because I couldn't enjoy it and I'm behind an old, dense lilac hedge anyway.

However, the U of MN extension offers a list of successful boulevard plants for The Cities (PDF format, can't cut and paste) - including daylilies, hostas, iris, lamb's ears, monarda, nepeta, peonies, phlox, sedums, Veronicas... none of what I have from the list suffers any from deep hard pack snow cover from Nov/Dec to Mar/Apr. In fact, extreme cold with no snow cover is much more deadly.

Do people park along your street? Would a boulevard planting suffer foot traffic damage?

Thanks for keeping the suggestions rolling, folks!

I really shouldn't have said "ivy". The thing I'm wanting to plant isn't really such a thing. It's a creeping ground thing but it's not ivy. I'll let you know when I can get by Bachman's and identify it (or ask the neighbor).

We don't mind a bit of work like thinning and culling, we're just trying to avoid things that are finicky and require you to do certain things at specific times every year (like you need to mulch this week, then pull the mulch off, then put in this kind of fertilizer, then water it this much, but not more, etc. etc.)

Sedums love it here, in general.

That sounds like a great document, duluthinbloomz4. Do you have a URL or if not, the title of it? I could probably track it down.

People sometimes park along the street, but almost never in front of our house and pretty much never in front of our mailbox (where this bed is surrounding). Also, we have strong curbs so other than the slightly overhanging creeper I mentioned, it won't be in the street. I expect the mailman will probably clip it every once in a while but that's okay, cause he's a nice guy. :)

BTW, I was just up north a couple of weeks ago. Man, those lupine were beautiful!

jay - I found it by Googling boulevard plants for zone 4 and came up with "The Best Plants for 30 Tough Sites".

Don't know what happens here, but the sides of the road and fields explode with lupins.

Was it this?

Looking for that, I ran across this, which also looks really useful.

Just to clarify, this isn't a boulevard but just the street-facing (curbside) strip of my lawn that surrounds my mailbox. But yeah, the suggestions for plants in those documents are definitely applicable.

I've been up north a dozen times, and I've always managed to miss the lupines blooming. But they arrived at the perfect time for a friend's wedding. She had a {{gwi:38479}} of freshly picked lupine!

Okay, so I talked to the guy and what he has is Lysimachia nummularia (moneywort/golden creeping jenny). Yes, I know, it spreads. One thing that will help is that there's not a ton of water in this spot. Plus it's Minnesota. It will still try to get in the sod but I think we can handle keeping it busted back (especially with the three inch wide blocks to help form a slight obstacle). His have spread quite a bit in the non-grass areas, but they are co-existing peacefully around the other tall perennials (going on three years now). And if nothing else, there's always Roundup. ;)

The best part is he said I could take all the cuttings I need from his. So I'm willing to risk it.

Well, we took the plunge and planted a bunch of stuff:

Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed)
Coreopsis (a sulphur-yellow variety called Moonbeam)
Gaillardia x grandiflora (an Indian Blanket variety called Arizona Sun)
Shasta Daisy (a little shorter "Snow Cap" variety)
Peony (Sarah Bernhardt)
Penstemon x mexicali (Red Rocks Beardtongue)
Aquilegia (Songbird Robin columbine)
Delphinium grandiflorum (Summer Nights/larkspur)
Delphinium (pacific giant/King arthur - only one very tall one next to the mailbox - it was just so beautiful. too bad about the short lifespan)
Phlox paniculata (White/Red Eye Flame)
Echinacea purpurea (coneflower)
Sedum reflexum
the purple irises already mentioned
a single bearded iris that we picked up somehow

There's still a few open spots so I'll probably pick up a two or three more perennials and call it done. I'm probably only going to plant one tiny area with moneywort just so I can see how it behaves in that area. Might save some hassle.

Excellent choices! You have picked some of my all-time favorites, particularly garden phlox and delphinium (though they can be a bit particular). Perhaps you might try a hollyhock or two at the back of the bed for some height? They would go very well with the phlox, delphinium, etc. They are a biennial, but super, super easy reseeders.