Landscape architect Tom Keith is not shy when it comes to designing perennial borders. He is not one to sprinkle begonias around the trees and add petunias along the edge. His plan for Jim and Cynthia LaCoste's front-yard hillside indicates how he prefers bold strokes of texture and color. He used 180 'Big Blue' liriope under the oak trees, 40 'Goldsturm' orange coneflowers above the retaining wall, and 30 'Stella de Oro' daylilies out front near the street.

Tom even planted 15 'Morden's Pink' lythrum, a clump-forming version of the loosestrife that grows wild throughout the Eastern United States. His mix of 'Gateway' Joe-pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum 'Gateway'), spike blazing star (Liatris spicata 'Kobold'), Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), and threadleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis verticillata 'Zagreb') were not what Jim and Cynthia had in mind. They were interested in Southern signature evergreens. But Tom advised that after many of the trees were cleared, the slope would be more suited to a colorful perennial border.

The plants Tom used have iron constitutions. "He assured me that this would be pretty low maintenance," Jim says. "He said he'd tested them all, and he found some even I couldn't kill." Jim maintains the yard in about an hour a week, plus a few bigger cleanups in spring and fall.