I really like those yellow blobs that look like mop heads. I think they are false cypress dwarf cultivars (Chamaecyparis). They seem readily available in nurseries.

I assume this is a full sun bed?

Oh yes, it is in full sun. It will be in a Master Gardener demonstration garden. I have adopted a plot and I want most of it to be colorful but low maintenance, although 6'X6' of it will be a knot garden--high maintenance!! The knot will be made with santolina. I want to include some Georgia Gold Medal plants. One colorful one is Abelia Canyon Creek.

I love Abelia Canyon Creek, but don't forget that Rose Creek is it's dwarf sibling if you need something smaller.

I think the gold chamaecyparis I saw at the 2005 flower show, I think it's called Vintage Gold, is really beautiful.

Yomamanem, how about these things I thought of that are of different sizes and for different sun conditions--maybe one can work for you: gold cultivar sambucus; canna pretoria or tropicana. Sweet Kate tradescantia. Carex ice dance. Miscanthus zebrinus, and Rosa Glauca.

Rose

The santolina made me think of feijoa, pineapple guava, which would be a pretty echo for the silver foliage and a bright contrast to other foliages and also has summer flowers and edible fruit as bonuses.

Rosie,
Have you had good luck with feijoa? I'd love to try one but I've been told they're really marginal around here (I live in Athens) so my plan was to hold back until global warming officially kicked us into Zone 8 :) I've also heard they rarely flower, almost never fruit, etc.. But they look so cool!

What about some Wine & roses wiegela or one of the other burgandy leafed varieties of wiegela or what is the ninebark with the dark leaves. of course there is lorapetalum, there is a caryopteris susnshine blue with light green/gold leaves. Maybe varigated hydrangeas. Fatsia is not colorful but certainly a unique foliage. I am really tired so I am sure I will think of more.

artemisia for silver. I have a japanese maple, Tamukeyama, that does well in full sun for me, it's deep red when it opens in the spring, and then goes a purply bronze-green all summer. Sango Kaku doesn't have variegated foliage, but it does have coral bark, and really brilliant orange-red fall foliage. then there's variegated liriope, or Carex muskungiensis (sp?) but you don't want to walk next to it with bare legs:) i also have a purple-leafed indian hawthorn and dwarf nandinas.