Delphinium exaltatum

They should look fabulous Lauram,..very dainty flower, not like the blousy (though still lovely )hybrids of today, as we get over here too.

That's what I thought, also, Judy. That is generally why I try to avoid hybrids. We've forgotten how beautiful the 'originals' are in the quest for something bigger & (but not necessarily) better.
Years ago I worked as an assistant gardener on an estate owned by very, very wealthy people. Everything had to be in continous bloom so we were ordered to toss all plants past their flowering stage in the trash (yes, a trash pile, we were not allowed to salvage them and take them home). Anyway....one day we were in need of plants for a bare spot so we went to a very pricey nursery for foxgloves. These foxgloves were so loaded with flowers and so heavy they could barely remain upright. Yes, they were pretty, but they were also just too much, just overblown. I think that was a turning point for me, I really just soured on your typical garden center plant after that. I mostly try to buy native plants and I buy the species whenever possible.

My kind of gardening ...ideally that is ! In fact you have renewed my enthusiasm to look for native plants.
I would have been horrified ,like you to just throw plants away. Some of my customers are a bit that way inclined, but none of them mind me rescuing them fortunately.
I have been trying over the years to make our garden have all year round interest...but, there is something wonderful about a sleeping garden gradually waking up, and almost every day from February onwards, there is something new slowly unfurling.
ps.Saw a bee for the first time this year..always a good sign.

Judy, I felt so negative about the garden for several years, before I even began working on it, because it was shade and clay, and what could I do with shade and clay? I made a few hopeless experiments with plants that were ill-suited to the conditions before I decided to just go with it and embrace the conditions rather than seeing them as a hindrance. Well, sometimes I do feel a bit envious of people with nice sunny areas, but at this point I wouldn't trade places. I've become more interested in and appreciative of texture and foliage, since so many shade plants look good all season long, even after flowering. And many are evergreen, always a plus. I have a friend with a huge, sunny garden, lots of flowers and vegetables, and it's in full sun all day, very unpleasant to work in because of the heat here, and it's just so much more work, so many more weeds to pull. So there are some benefits to shady gardens!
I would say the garden is about 90-95% native plants, since there are some non-natives (like hellebores and autumn ferns) that I just can't live without (evergreen!)
I haven't seen a single bee yet this year, but they'll come (I'm sadly allergic and have to be very careful as only a few stings send me into shock).
Oh, the people I worked for had Picassos....real Picassos...so they could afford to throw away perfectly good plants.

Lol ! ..Give me a good plant over a real Picasso any day (though I suppose I could sell it and buy a chain of garden centres !).
Presumably you have to carry an adrenalin shot? It's a good job bees are generally placid, though wasps must be a pain for you ?
Shady gardens can be a challenge ,like you say. We are very lucky here, in that we have a good, balanced mixture of light and shade, also, the climate is quite moderate ...this last winter was an exception of course.
Before I became a self employed gardener I worked for a massive commercial tomato grower. This involved sweating under glass for up to 8hrs a day (though I tried to start as early as possible to avoid the afternoon heat ). When I pass the greenhouses now, even after 9yrs away from it, I breathe a big sigh of relief that all that is behind me ,and am in the open air now !

yes, it's the wasps that are the real problem - I really need to work on getting brush & brambles cleared early this season before they become active. I don't go outside without Benadryl and my phone, just in case, but my worst sting wasn't from wasps, it was from one of those awful brown recluse spiders! There is no antivenin so I stayed sick for several days, walked with a limp for a couple of months and now have a depression in my leg (where the venom ate away at my flesh) to show for it. It took 6 months for the swelling to go down but I was lucky since it could have been a lot worse - a local woman had to have one breast removed last year due to a brown recluse bite AND she was in a coma!
There are actually some really great plants that love shade....think of Arisaemas, Phlox, orchids, some asters, foamflowers, etc. Maybe they aren't as showy as sun loving plants, but they're still beautiful in their own way, I think. I do have an area next to the driveway that gets sun; I used to have Rudbeckia and coreopsis planted there but now it's mostly Monarda. It's unimproved, so to speak, and just looks like a little meadow, so that's my spot to plant tall, informal wildflowers for cutting. I'm going to plant several Helianthus species there this year. I planned to put a stop to the plant spending but other GOY members have been busy suggesting some of their favorite plants for such a spot, so now I have another shopping list.

That must be such a worry, sounds like you had a terrible time of it. They say conkers are good for deterring spiders (well at least my sister does..she is petrified of them !),though am sure by now you will have tried everything. We do have biting spiders here but thankfully (to my knowledge at least) none are poisonous .
Making plant lists can be a bit of an addiction..but one we don't need a cure for ! The trouble is ,sometimes, it feels like my head will explode with all the ideas that keep pushing in, especially at this time of year, when everything is beginning to happen !

Wow! Lauram, you sure don't have your troubles to seek in your garden, wasps, spiders and I suppose every so often snakes. I couldn't stand the thought of being bitten by the latter two. And Judy, even though their not poisonous, I will "NEVER EVER" lift a spider up again with my bare hands, I never knew our spiders bite.

I see those spiders in the house all the time, also black widows which are just as bad. But they're apparently non-aggressive; most people get bitten when they accidentally crush the spider, which is what I suspect happened to me . I tried on a pair of jeans that I hadn't worn in ages (they'd been sitting on the top shelf of my closet & I think the spider was hiding in them), they fit so I kept them on and then left for a meeting at work. I kept feeling an itch on my leg, which I thought was maybe a scratch, & didn't think much of it. My meeting ended, I went to the pet store, was chatting with some friends and suddenly became really sick. Driving home I had chills, fever, and shaking, got home and managed to get into bed. I remember trying to drink some water but my hands were shaking so badly I couldn't lift the glass. In the meantime this thing on my leg was swelling and burning - it eventually reached 10 inches in diameter. I hadn't been that sick in a long, long time. I never put any clothing on now without shaking the item out first!
Hel, we do have venomous snakes here, there are copperheads and rattlesnakes on my property. I found a baby copperhead last year and was very excited.

I have bought a couple of these - they look so wonderful on tags :):) Hope they thrive for you :):):)