Adventures in the Shade Garden

 Drat! I forgot to take a "before" picture! This area- while still looking kind of barren- was covered in poison ivy and woodland asters. Hey! I like woodland asters as much as the next native plant gardener but they were the only thing in this section of the shade border and were threatening to swamp the few little Hostas that lived there. Originally, I was going to re-do this are last summer but thanks to really hot, dry conditions (and a low well), I had to wait until this year.

Fortunately, I actually had a selection of plant material (mostly Hostas *1) from previous birthday requests and plants that were scattered throughout the other areas of my garden so after I weeded and removed rocks, I was ready to transplant.

Yup! That's one of the more sizable individuals I wrestled from the ground! I dug up various lonely Hostas, divided others and started planting. I also moved several into the newly dubbed "Hosta-pital" behind the barn. These specimens need a bit of TLC!

I had a "Little Mouse Ears" that I easily divided into three, but they're going to the far end of the shade garden, which I'm also replanting. Little Mouse Ears had resided under the Sand Cherry that half-way died this spring. Suddenly, it was full sun and the Ears needed moving. Anyway they will all have a place in the Shade Border after recovering.

Further along, I planted Caladium to distract from all the weeds and mess in an area I haven't tackled yet. I will be the first to acknowledge that shade gardening doesn't come as naturally to me as full sun gardening. Shady gardens may be cooler to work in, but I sometimes get the willies as they tend to be moister and slimier and you can't always see what you're putting your hand into. Yick. But they also tend to take care of themselves more after they're installed so less time is spent fondling slime.

Here's the terminus of the Shade Garden. The lovely gate that Bob made me for my birthday several years ago is such a nice transition to the wilder world beyond. And the giant pale green Colocasia makes a terrific statement (*2).

And you know me! Can't resist a bargain and can't have too many plants! While shopping at our local supermarket, how could I resist rescuing two Hostas (on two separate occasions) that had been reduced to 1/2 price! Ditto at the big box store where I was purchasing contact lens solution. They look so happy now. More residents for my expanding and improving Shade Garden: Yay!!

(*1) Named varieties of Hosta that I have collected were "Island Breeze", "Guacamole", "little Mouse Ears", and recently added "Minuteman", "Rain Forest Sunrise" and "Blue Angel". I already had "Sum and Substance" and "Empress Wu" and "Sagae"-(these last 3 are huge varieties!), along with any number of delightful by unidentified cultivars.

(*2) Thank you to our friend Roberta who has a real knack for raising an astonishing assortment of Elephant Ears!

My Birthday Present

Fairy Land! Little did I dream when I asked Bob to make me a gate for the "new" shade garden that he'd out-do himself and make this marvelous creation! What a great birthday gift! The gate leads from the path (that used to end abruptly at a section of non-descript fencing) to the greater wild woods beyond. Enchanting.
The new gate transformed the entire area. Bob maneuvered the elephant ears (Colocasia) closer to the base of the large pine tree (to the right) and he even installed a new drive-through gate farther to the right. That opened up the entire backside of my lilac area and gave us even more room to play in. I now feel inspired to "finish"* the Shade Garden, complete with a path up to a higher private area that affords a lovely little view down into the rest of the garden... Magic!!
Here's another, closer shot:

It's ethereal and sturdy at the same time. The quartz rocks float in such an enchanting way in front of the gate; Bob is so eager for the mesh fence to rust up so that you'll no longer see the grid lines. I kind of like them, but it will look even more delicate...
And here's a detail of the center top of the gate: Loads of tiny quartz rocks spiraling upwards...

The other morning, I walked down with Robin to check on the Shade Garden. I was delighted to see that a spider- no doubt inspired by Bob's gate- had constructed a web to the left of the gate. It was sparkling with dew and made a wonderful visual accompaniment!

Alas! I tried to take a picture that captured the beautiful rivalry of web and gate but didn't succeed! Could it get any better than this?!?
 *Is any garden ever really "finished"?!?!?

Unexpected Tradgi-Versity 31 1/2

There was a frost a few nights ago and it killed the basil... you know what that means! Happy Non-Anniversary to Bob and me! Okay, so the fact that our non-anniversary typically lands towards the end of September or beginning of October means nothing when you get a bizarre and unexpected frost that obliterates your only-just-planted basil but every other tender annual you tenderly started from seed... Oh the horror! The horror!
I lost two full flats of zinnia linearis (from my own saved seed!) which are impossible to buy at nurseries nowadays. A full flat of heliotrope (that I started from seed) and a number of individual "premium" annuals that I'd secured for filling containers succumbed, too. I was pretty much devastated but then Bob and I decided to celebrate 31 1/2 years...
So I had to re-purchase the plants that I could (tomatoes, peppers, basil etc) and simply mourn the ones I couldn't (whole flats of odd ball annuals). I lucked onto a slew of calendulas (in the same color range as the zinnias I'd planted) and bought enough to fill the bed that empty. It will look fine by mid-summer but I really LIKE those zinnias I lost!
Here's the replacement calendulas... all things considered, they'll look pretty good quite soon.

There's Maggie in the background. Hello Maggie! (She likes to watch Robin and I plant.)
So other things going on...

Be still my heart! We all know I am crazy for Delphinium; oooooh! This is a long running love affair. And wouldn't you know, I go to Stop and Shop for something and I see- across the parking lot, despite my face mask fogging my sunglasses- a truck unloading flowers at the other door. I make a bee line, but am told they have to unload the truck before they can sell the flowers. (Yeah, it's eight feet up on a huge rack.) So I procure whatever food was I needed, put it in our car (shout out to Trusty!) and immediately reapproach the plant people who have now offloaded. Sold!! I have to go all the way back in to the store, but this Delphinium is coming home with me, baby!

In a heavy mist today, I got a lot done in all parts of the garden, including the Shade Border which looks quite okay despite my sort of ignoring it while I plant many other things. Here's a close up of the Kerria Japonica:

Nice! Single orange blooms, impeccable variegation... this is a winner. Lots of nice things erupting here, suitable for my next post.
And I know you can't smell it from there, but the Abelia is amazing! Loaded with blooms- top to bottomus- and just great:

Also, the lilac that Mommy gave me a million years ago is blooming. I'm so happy about this. This particular offspring is from a white lilac that Mommy had- in Durham!- like fifty years ago is now residing and flowering in my Lilac Border. that made me happy (and a bit sad). But it smells so nice...

Touching the Fence

 A new garden is born! I have been meaning to begin developing a serious shade area, as opposed to a small cluster of shade plants at the end of one bed. And for my birthday, I received a new hosta (Sum and Substance) and that was that! I began digging... (Doesn't look like much yet, but you'd be surprised at how many weeds and junk I pulled out. And rocks! Here's just a partial sampling:

The area that I selected for positioning the shade garden is majorly infested with poison ivy. While I have been careful (whatever that means) I invariably develop at least one case of what can only be deemed "heroic" poison ivy every year. Here's this year's offering! And of course, it's during the hottest, stickiest time of the summer, when I'm already crabby and battling evil weather. Like last Thursday. Bob and I were supposed to go to New York for a show that I am in. "Supposed to" being the operative words. Sanity prevailed as half way to the train station, I asked Bob if he thought it was totally stupid to be going into New York with storms threatening and it being just generally polluted and nasty out. We decided to not go and the skies did open and we missed nothing, except my being in an opening with 110 other artists. I'm delighted to be in the show, but feel like a minute carbuncle on the ass of the art world. Or should I capitalize that? ART WORLD. Carbuncles? You want to talk carbuncles? Just look at my arm...

 

So today I was in a foul humor, despite having several great art ideas on my morning ramble with Jules. I spent several productive hours in my studio, and still I feel sort of at odd ends. It might have been the tremendous thunder storm that we had last night. It woke both Bob and I with one of the loudest claps of thunder I have ever heard. So my present joke is about "touching the fence". You may remember that several months back, I was having a terrible day. Nothing seemed to be going well, I was out of sorts and just not my usual chipper Little Miss Sunshine self. And then I accidentally touched Maggie the Horses' electric fence. Hey Presto! It was as if a jolt from the sky re-routed my personal misaligned electrical field because everything was fine after that. (Perhaps it was a mild form of electro shock therapy?) Anyway, my standing joke now is that if the day sucks... go ahead: touch that fence!