Thanks to Paghat

[Merle O'Broham]

I wanted to post a thank you here. I saw a pic of your shade garden on your website last year and it inspired me to do something with my "dogpatch" on the other side of my garage. Previous owners neglected the area. It's now my little sanctuary.

The space is ~ 15' x 40' or so of shade and was a bit of dry clumpy grass with weeds along a 6' fence between the garage and the neighbor's yard. I put a 2' river rock border next to the garage, hung white tubelights under the eave of the garage (on timer at night), put in a ~4' bed of mulch along the fence gradually adding plants to it as friends' and neighbor's generosity (we all share) and $ are available.

Now I have an arrowwood viburnum, 2 types of hydrangea, climbing hydrangea on the fence, a couple azaleas, ~6 types of hostas, hardy geranium, rocket and dentata ligularia, some columbine, some "ditchweed" orange daylillies and a few ferns. Next up is putting in an oriental-style fountain (donated), mini-flagstone patio, and a nice wrought-iron arch ($).

Just a thanks.

[Cheryl Isaak]

Pictures?

Cheryl

[Merle O'Broham]

First year plantings, fall upon us, but if you insist. It's really kinda sparse looking still, but I'll snap a few and post tonight. Looking forward to next spring.

[Merle O'Broham]

springs eternal!

[Cheryl Isaak]

Looks like a lovely start and it will grow more so each year! Cheryl

[paghat]

In article , [e-mail] (Merle O'Broham) wrote:

For something freshly planted it looks pretty nicely settled & comfortabole, & will certainly age into increasing lushness. I'd want a more decorative fence is all, I'm partial to weathered unpainted wood, but even this wire & metal fence could have shade-tolerant vines here & there using it for trellis. I'd recommend some kind of dwarf variegated ivy; slow to establish but eventually very remarkable, has to be trained to a fence or it will just creep around the ground but it responds easily to the training. Clematis sometimes do quite well in moderate shade, & for something swift-growing, akebia vine is an ideal rapid-cover shade vine, & nothing aggressive about it. Virginia creeper does fine in shade but it has to be watched lest it take over. Climbing hydrangea would rather climb up a tree than a fence, but I see you have some lovely trees for that too, & climbing hydrangea clings to bark without injuring the tree. Also, if you haven't done so already, inserting some cyclamen seedlings up close to the base of the trees insures something will be blooming even in autumn & winter. Generally areas near evergreen rootcrowns won't support plants, but cyclamens like just that sort of spot. I recommend seedlings because planting a tubor or a well-grown pot of hardy cyclamen would require digging too much with risk to the tree's roots, but seedlings can be fitted in harmlessly, & the tubor is evolved to mature in just such locations. My Cyclamen hederifoliums & the Cyprian cyclamens are in full bloom right now & will continue through autumn, to be followed by C. coum that'll bloom through winter. Gorgeous leaves linger into spring, then all the cycalmens vanish until the following autumn, except tiny C. intaminatum which persists year round.

-paghat the ratgirl

[Merle O'Broham]

Cheryl and paghat, I appreciate your comments. Wish you could've seen this patch a couple of years ago. I look forward to snapping some nice pics next year when some more work is done in "my little sanctuary". :-)