Olivia54984

Rosecobb has nailed the ID on this.

Joray,
I just came across this pic of your Boulevard cypress. I have one in zone 4/5 in a protected location and it windburns and dessicates pretty easily. Be sure to wrap it with burlap through the winter. It does send out a lot of new growth every year, but without protection, looks scrubby too long.

Ah! It takes a really "skillful" gardener not kill plants, but keep them alive and simply torture them throughout the summer, never allowing the plants to achieve their ephemeral garden glory.

I have Lapin cherry I have been torturing attempting to espalier with bricks and string that is very close to throwing up its limbs in disgust and defeat. I also have been spiraling a balsam fir, keeping it at 6' tall, which it seems to actually like-- no pressure to grow tall and perform-- it has all the excuses in the book just to "be".

I didn't actually kill anything.

My favorite, new to me, new plant? It would have to be the red-leaf begonia saxifraga, a ground covering perennial, I planted in my scree garden.

Sweet potato 'Margarita'
Jewels of Opar "Kingwood Gold'
'Dart's Gold' Ninebark
Sumac 'Tiger Eyes'
Spirea 'Goldmound'

Admittedly, many have the word "gold" in their name, but with the sun working them, they pul up a lot of the chatreusey-green.

Did any one ever get a picture of this in bloom?

It could be campanula carpatica. It comes in white or blue.

It could be campanula carpatica, comes in both white and blue.

It is not Canadian Ginger. That has a roundish, shiny leaf. This has a spotted leaf. It's common name is evergreen ginger, native to Tennesee. I'm not sure if that isn't the same as the Latin one mentioned by the first poster. This not an arum.