In contrast to Striatum, the classic variegated Solomon's seal is discrete and elegant.
Just a thin orderly perimeter of white to each leaf, not the jubilant and vivid markings of Striatum: Stripes, please, and not strident ones either, thank you. And with that double-strand of pearls, I mean flowers, running down the underside of the stem? Elegant indeed.
Not a problem with me: I've got that elegant-and-subtle gene too, and sometimes even let it out to play. And to work: Unlike Striatum, Variegatum is thick-growing. Combine that with its larger, rounder, and overlapping leaves, and diligent outward growth—all the stems face outward, to the ground that will shortly be colonized—and you get an excellent and even large-scale groundcover. Just don't plant it near anything smaller, which the overhanging and overlapping growth will effectively smother.

As I mentioned in "Feisty", the One-Minute Max for May 13, dwarf Solomon's seal doesn't let its lack of height diminish its authority, its territoriality. First, that "height."I understand that really giant dwarf Solomon's seal can soar to five even six inches. Mine is about half that, whether from culture or luck or youth I don't yet know. Maybe this is a dwarf-dwarf clone, or just a young colony (this is its third year).
I love how it seems to crowd up against the edge of the bluestone walkway. It can't creep underground far enough to get to the other side of the walkway (which is even feet wide), which perhaps will only increase the sense of intention and urgency on this side.
As the colony matures, the growth gets dense enough to work as respectable groundcover. And the outward creep continues too; I suppose in a decade I'll have it five feet wider. Given that everything else within radius is many times as tall, that would be just ducky.

The colony of yellow disporum continues to unfurl with style, despite nighttimes that have nipped other foliage here and there over the whole garden.
But this plant is a confidently come-hither performer, bringing out gentle cascades of flower with the tasteful voluptuousness of Gypsy Rose Lee slinking an opera glove down her arm.
And yup, there I am, on my knees, bowing and photographing with the best of them.

Can I just say, up front and personal-like, that I hope never to say "Fairy Bells" in public. It is so twee that I worry I'd get heart-burn as well as cavities right there and then.
You too can help. All together please: "Dis-POUR-uhm". There. That didn't hurt, now, did it? There are about twenty species of disporums, all native to Japan and Asia, and plenty of hybrids too. (There are also five North American species, but these were renamed Prosartes.) Asiatica Nursery seems to be at the head of the disporum pipeline, with thirteen yummy choices this Spring, many named hybrids from Japan.
To start, do what I did: start with the easiest, Disporum flavens.
Disporums take a couple of years to ramp up. My colony is in its third year, and this is the first time the stalks—which shoot up in Spring as eagerly as bamboo—have buds. "Flavens" means yellow, and those buds are daffodil-bright. I'll catch this beauty as the flowers unfold, I promise.