I live in the woods within a borough. Here’s my house on Google maps. The turquoise color you see is the copper roof on the back of the house. The trees are 100+ year-old oaks and sycamore, maples, tulip tree, elm, and gingko. Then there are the understory trees that are a magnolia, dogwoods, serviceberry, and redbuds. The result is the deep shade that you can see in the title photo.
I have developed a real appreciation for shade plants. When I was a new gardener I was only excited by the bright, showy, strong colors of full sun perennials. I thought shade plants were boring. Oh how things change. I am now obsessed with hostas and ferns. I’ve relished the challenge of creating a white garden using shade plants which has led to me discovering many native woodland plants that have white blooms and prefer deep shade. One of those is doll’s eyes which I planted last year. They are still developing their blooms but I love the whimsical look of them even without the blooms or berries.
The other plant I just discovered is called white wood aster. I’ve put in a call to a local nursery that specializes in native plants. They’re going to call me when they dig some more up.
Now on to hostas. Here’s the hosta/white garden from a second floor window. When we started this garden my husband found a bunch of clearance hostas for $2 each at Walmart. We bought them all. They make good filler but I am slowly replacing them with better varieties.
I plan to divide these World Cups and plant them in the shadier areas of this garden. They’ll give me the height and brightness I need and they are capable of growing above the pachysandra.
I love how blue this hosta is. I want to add some more large blue varieties to offset the deep green of the pachysandra and ostrich ferns under the magnolia.
I divided this variety and planted it around the patio. They are still recovering but they should grow well above the pachysandra next year.
Here it is transplanted.
I planted these ghost ferns last year. They look great with everything. I may have to buy some more.
Heuchera is another go to for the shade garden and I’ve been adding them here and there. This year I planted white astilbe but I’m struggling with them. Or rather they are struggling.
There is a section of this garden that gets full sun. It’s a strip along the walkway and I call it the Zone of Death. I can’t tell you how many plants I’ve put there that seem absolutely happy and then don’t return the next year. This year is no different so I’ve added delphinium and sedum. You may notice the blue delphinium. It was labeled as white. It’s driving me crazy.
The verbascum returned stronger than ever so I’m thrilled about that. I think they are just beautiful. I’d like to see them reseed themselves along with the foxglove.
I’ll have to cut the blue one back before it drops seeds. It’s pretty but doesn’t fit my scheme and your eye goes right to it and upsets the subtle beauty of the other plants.
For instance I bet you didn’t see the penstemon.
This hydrangea suffered a lot of frost damage so it’s a weird shape this year. I must get better about protecting the hydrangeas from late frosts because they happen every year. It has gorgeous blooms.
I’d like to say that this bed will be complete after getting some large blue hostas and white wood aster and conquering the Zone of Death but is a flowerbed ever finished? There’s always room for more plants!
And for those of you who are interested here is the dandelion wine. It hasn’t cleared yet and is still fermenting. I’m supposed to wait 30 days after it clears then transfer it to another jug and repeat that step every three months for nine months.
What’s going on in your gardens?