Hi Sarah, welcome to the FN forum. A lakside house, wow, thats cool!
Here are just a few tough hardy perennials to get you started.....

Artemisia
Baptisia False Indigo
Festuca Blue Fescue Ornamental Grass
Gaillardia Blanket Flower
Iris, Miniature Dwarf Bearded, Standard Dwarf Bearded
Liatris Gayfeather
Limonium latifolium Sea Lavender
Nepeta Catmint
Oenothera species
Opuntia Prickly Pear Cactus
Rudbeckia Black-eyed Susan
Sedum Stonecrop
Sempervivum Hens & Chickens
Solidago Goldenrod
Stachys byzantina LambÂs Ear

Sharon

Thanks Sharon! I'll give those a try!

There is an excellent book called Creating the Prairie Xeriscape by Sara Williams. It focuses on low-maintenance, water efficient gardening.

A superb place to go shopping for plants is Holes Greenhouse in St. Albert, just tell the nursery gal your growing environments and she will pick out some plants for you. I love, love, love that nursery!!! A little bit pricey compared to your local Walmart but at least they guarantee their plants and they are much much healthier!

One that is a must in any garden is Lilies, they would be ideal in your sandy soil, they love soil with very good drainage. IÂd skip the real tall varieties, unless you want to stake them ;)

Also Daylilies, some species and cultivars are bullet proof hardy and would stand up to windy conditions.

Good luck and have fun landscaping your new home. Take photos and post them in the Gallery for us to see ;)

Sharon

Sharon pretty much covered it all, but I just wanted to add Dianthus (especially a low growing variety), and Lupines and Delphiniums would do well in sandy poor soil BUT only if you want to stake them. Otherwise they would be flat in a second.

I think a lakeside garden would be cool too! I have never even thought of it before. Have fun.

Yes, Dianthus for sure would love those conditions.

For shrubs, I checked my 'Trees & Shrubs for Northern Gardens' book which has a list of trees/shrubs for dry sandy soils. They list (among others) Rhus species & cultivars (common name Sumac), Prunus besseyi (Western Sandcherry), Amorpha canescens (Lead plant), Arctostaphylos (Bearberry), Betula populifolia (Gray birch), Caragana species & cultivars, Celtis occidentalis (Hackberry), Elaeagnus angustifolia (Russian Olive), Fraxinus pennsylvanica & cultivars (Green Ash), Hippophae rhamnoides (Sea Buckthorn), Junipers, Pinus banksiana (Jack Pine) and Yucca glauca.

If you're going for a natural look to your landscaping and are thinking about adding ornamental grasses, Eragrostis trichodes (Sand Love Grass) will work well. I don't grow it (yet) so I can't personally recommend it. It's a bunch grass so will not run but, as with many native grasses, there may be an issue with seeding out. This can work to your benefit depending on your landscaping style.

Lucky you with a lakeside property. We just spent a few days camping at a lakeside campsite and I thought that was awesome (and so did our 2 labrador retrievers).

Good luck with your new home and landscaping endeavors. We'd love to see some pictures - have you tried uploading to Photobucket then linking? If you're unsure of how to go about it, just ask away.

If you are gardening by a lakeside is there any prior evidence of deer in the area? If there is, then you won't want to plant lilies or daylilies because they will be like treats for the deer.

Just my 2 cents.

Brenda

Lucky girl to live lakeside.
I see that you have lots of suggestions already. But may I add Penstemons and Cranesbill(Hardy geranium).
I'm sure that hardy roses would stand up well in your area too. But if you have deer....

Shelley

I actually have not had any evidence of deer in my yard(unless its in the middle of the night), or until my hubby said he woke up and looked out the window upon a big buck... there has been moose trekking through in the winter(scared the hell out of me :-) But no shrubs or plants have been chewed up... yet...

I just discovered this forum and I'm sure it's a wonderful place to live beside the lake. We've travelled the hwy from Jasper to Edmonton many times, in every season and I know what you mean about the wind! I wondered if you have considered planting a windbreak. I have relatives in Sask. and everyone there has windbreaks and their yards are lovely enclosed spaces which make nice places to enjoy the plantings.

I'm sure Hole's can advise you on what to plant, chokecherries and highbush cranberries are the only shrubs that come to mind right now cause I've planted these myself. I love Hole's Nursery, we've visited there when on vacation.

The only time I've ever gardened in sandy soil was in Ontario when I was a real novice gardener. Because we couldn't afford to buy a lot of topsoil I lined each planting hole with several layers of newspaper. It slowed down the drainage a bit and I had a very nice garden.