Most of us have in our home landscape places that stump us when it comes to selecting the best tree, groundcover, shrub or perennial plant for the location. As a Master Gardener, I learned long ago the adage, “Right plant, right place.” But how to pick that right plant?

Living in the Pacific Northwest, we are fortunate to have access to recommendations from horticulturists who live west of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, Canada. These are experts from a variety of wholesale and retail nurseries, as well as garden designers and managers of our area’s arboretums, parks and botanical gardens. The place to look for these “Great Plant Picks” is at the website by the same name: greatplantpicks.org.

The Great Plant Picks program began in 2001 and is an educational arm of the Elizabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden, located in Seattle. As of this year, there are more than 900 plants listed as Great Plant Picks. Every year, a new list of plants is released. This year, the program features “Bright Ideas for Shade.”

The website’s plant lists are divided into categories, such as “Plants that make SCENTS,” “Made in the Shade—Plants for Shade.” Each major list has subcategories. “Made in the Shade” includes, for example, lists for bulbs that grow in the shade, conifers for shade, plants for dappled shade.

How does a plant become a Great Plant Pick? The criteria are that the plant:

• Is hardy in USDA Zones 7 and 8 (0 degrees to 10 degrees).

• Is long-lived.

• Is vigorous and easy to grow by a gardener of average means and experience.

• Is reasonably disease- and pest-resistant.

• Has a long season of interest and preferably multiple seasons of interest.

• Is available from at least two retail plant sources in Canada and the United States.

• Is adaptable to a variety of soil and fertility conditions.

• Does not require excessive moisture (except for aquatic plants).

• Is not invasive or overly vigorous in colonizing the garden or larger environment.

Great Plant Picks is more than a list and photos of plants. Each plant listed at the site is accompanied by helpful planting instructions, hardiness information, sun and water requirements, the plant’s height and width at maturity and suggestions for plant companions.

If you are looking for a plant for a unique location, there is a useful search tool at the Great Plant Picks website. You can search by the type of soil where the plant will be located, by the foliage color you desire, by bloom time, and plant height or width. There are many more criteria from which you can select.

Last fall, I searched for trees that would be deciduous, columnar in growth habit and would be drought-tolerant once established. The search using those criteria resulted in five choices, and from those, I selected one golden European beech tree and two sugar maples. They are happily planted in my front garden.

Mary Shane is a WSU Master Gardener living in the Val Vista area west of Montesano.