Month: July 2023

Good morning from the garden!

We had a bit of rain last week, and when it stopped and the sun came out in the evening, the shade garden was looking particularly lush.  So I thought it would be the perfect time to get some pictures to put together a little tour of this area for you guys.

Let me explain the layout a little bit.  Our gravel driveway runs along the east side of our house and goes to the carriage house which is all the way back at the southeast corner of our lot.  The shade garden sits between the driveway and the house, and pretty much runs the entire length of the house.

OK, now the basics.  I garden in zone 4b in the Twin Cities (for those who don’t already know).  This garden ranges from part shade on either end to full shade in the middle.  It’s shaded by two huge maple trees on the other side of the driveway, and a couple of ancient pine trees down the middle of the garden.

This particular garden is definitely the one that gets the most attention from me.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  First of all, I much prefer working in the shade over working in the hot sun.  It’s so much cooler.  So I find myself wanting to spend more time weeding there.  Second, it’s very visible from inside the house.  Most of our windows look out to this side of the house including our large picture window in the piano room.

So we get to enjoy this garden from inside the house as well as outside.

We never could get grass to grow in the area between the shade garden and the house, although we tried for years.  It’s a fairly high traffic area because our spigot is just next to where you see the watering can on the chair on the left.  We eventually gave up on grass and put in the flagstone.  Ironically, when we started digging up what grass was there, we found a layer of sand under it.  So at some point in the past, this area must have been paved in some fashion.  No wonder we couldn’t get any grass to grow!

I’ve always wanted to extend the flagstone all the way down, and then create a path to the front door as well, but um, yeah, that’s probably never going to happen.  There are too many other things ahead of that on the wish list.

The fountain that you can see down at the end has been located in a couple of different spots since we purchased it, but I like this one the best.

My garage sale statue, Cossetta, sits in the middle of the shade garden.

She’s actually quite tall, but so are the plants surrounding her.  There is a fern around her base, and some fairy candles (a.k.a. Black Cohosh, Black Snakeroot, Black Bugbane or Cimicifuga racemosa) behind her.  Those fairy candle flowers are taller than me.  I think the way Cossetta emerges from the foliage looks rather magical.

This garden is full of shade loving plants.  Some of my favorites (other than hostas, which are a given) include tiarella, or foam flower …

Japanese painted fern …

Maidenhair fern …

Canadian wild ginger …

and fernleaf bleeding heart (this one continues to bloom for most of the season, and doesn’t start dying back this time of year like the other bleeding hearts).

All of these make great companions for hostas.

Speaking of hostas, my neighbor nnK’s mom, Judy, gave me three Curly Fries hostas as a thank you for helping in her garden earlier this summer.  I planted them in a triangle in front of the wrought iron bench that came from handyman Ken and his wife, Arlene.

Aren’t they fun?  Their texture contrasts perfectly with the large blue hosta behind them.

I’m trying to follow a new rule in my garden, and that is to plant at least three, if not five, of a single type of plant.  Planting in groupings of odd numbers like this feels more natural and harmonious than having lots of single specimen plants dotted around.

I have definitely not always followed this rule!  I mean, let’s face it, it’s 3x more expensive to buy three of a particular plant rather than just one.  But, I’ve been working on dividing existing plants into groupings, and whenever I add something new I try to add more than one.

That being said, I definitely still have some single specimen plants like these hostas.

That is a Guacamole on the left, and a Lakeside Dragonfly on the right.

The Sun Power hosta packs a big punch with it’s bright color, so I think it can stand alone as well.

It’s flanked by two June hostas, and that yellow blooming plant in front is a freely self-seeding Corydalis lutea.  It pops up all over the place, but it’s also quite easy to pull out if it shows up somewhere that you don’t want it.

Something that I’ve been experimenting with a bit more this year is interspersing some annuals in with my perennials, usually to fill in a space where a neighboring perennial won’t reach full size for a couple of years.  I pulled out some bleeding heart last year and after popping in three of the budget heuchera ($5 each!) that I found in the clearance aisle at my local nursery this spring, I also added in some King coleus to fill up the space.

It has created a gorgeous swath of colorful foliage.

Another good way to fill up some empty space is to place pots right in the garden.

My ‘Sun King’ aralia will eventually fill in this whole corner, but in the meantime a couple of my rusty pots filled with caladium look pretty here.

By the way, have I mentioned that I prefer my gardens to be jam packed with plants?  It really cuts down on weeding.

There can be some issues with plants that are crowded in like this, they are competing for water and nutrients and there is a greater risk of disease and insect pressure.  But personally, I think it’s worth the risk.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my shade garden.  If you have any questions about particular plants, be sure to leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer them.  Otherwise, I’m heading out to enjoy a cup of coffee in the shade garden!

Good morning from the garden!

Today I thought I’d ask you all the question, ‘hosta flowers, yes or no?’

In the past I’ve mentioned that I tend to cut the flowers off my hostas as soon as they appear.  But that’s partly because I have 500 (small exaggeration) of this old variegated variety of hosta in my garden …

and it has tall, spindly flower stalks with tiny lavender flowers on them.  You can see a couple of stragglers that I missed clipping in that photo.

If I just let them go, they look really messy and chaotic to me.  So, I have always trimmed them off.

In fact, in the past I’ve tended to remove the flowers from almost all of the hostas in my garden.

But this year it seems like the flowers on quite a few of them are really looking good.

Rather than having spindly flowers poking out in every direction, they have nice full clumps coming from the center of the plant.

Maybe it’s because they didn’t suffer any hail damage this spring.  Or maybe it’s because I top-dressed a lot of them with compost this year.  Or maybe it’s because I have been very diligent about keeping them watered.  We’ve had a very dry summer so far, currently we are experiencing what is considered a moderate to severe drought, so I’ve been doing a lot of watering.

Or maybe it’s just that I’ve never let them reach their full glory before!

Whatever the reason, this year I’ve decided that some of the hosta flowers deserve a spot in the garden.  In fact, I was standing over at nnK’s house across the street the other evening, and I noticed that from a distance it looks like my garden is full of purple blooms right now, and that’s not a bad thing.

One of the most prolific bloomers at the moment is this one …

This is a hosta that originally came to me from my friend Sue, and I’m fairly sure it’s called Golden Tiara.  Over the years, with lots of splitting here and there, I now have at least a dozen of them.

Another that’s full of flowers right now is this one.

I’ve got it tucked in between some Golden Tiara hostas on the right, and that glorious Raspberry Splash pulmonaria on the left.  I have no idea what this one is called, it’s similar in size to the Golden Tiara but is solid lime green.

Most of my hostas have pale purple flowers, but I do have a couple that get white flowers.

Wouldn’t that be a pretty addition to an all white blooming shade garden?

This next one starts out with pale lavender buds that fade to white as they open.

Not all hostas bloom at the same time.  I have several borders of a plain green hosta (also gifted by my friend Sue) that aren’t showing any signs of blooming yet.

In fact, oddly enough, although I’ve had these for years, I can’t even recall what their flowers even look like.  Clearly I don’t grow this variety for the blooms.  Instead, they make a great edging plant for a perennial border.  In fact, I just dug up two of them, divided the pair into 10 plants (yes, 10!, five each) and replanted them as a border under my Limelight hydrangeas.

They don’t look like much right now, but they will fill in quickly and create a solid border.

And speaking of hostas that aren’t blooming yet, one of my readers, Annie O, gifted me with a Royal Standard hosta that she says gets beautiful, and highly scented, white flowers.  But it’s also one that hasn’t bloomed yet (on left).

As is the Shadowland Autumn Frost hosta to the right of it.

I’ve done a little research and as far as I can tell, it does not harm your hosta in any way to remove the flower stalks before they open.  And you should definitely remove them after the flowers fade to reduce the amount of energy the plant spends on producing seed.  It can then devote that energy to growing more roots and foliage instead.

So I’m curious, do you whack the flowers off your hostas right away?  Or do you leave them until the flowers are done?  Do you have a particular hosta that you grow for its spectacular flowers, or do you pick hostas for their foliage alone?

Leave a comment and let me know.

As you may know, I have a window box along the front of my house.  Here’s a picture of it from last year.

At 11′ long, it ends up taking quite a few plants to fill it with annuals every spring.  Not to mention mums for fall …

and evergreens for winter.

I find that there are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to filling window boxes; at one end you have the gardener (not naming any names here) who plants exactly the same thing in their planters every year without fail.

Then there are gardeners like Erin from the Impatient Gardener who can’t stand to do the same thing every year and thus tries something new each spring.

I think I fall somewhere in between.  When I find something that works I like to stick with it.  But I also don’t want to fall into a gardening rut.  So this year I decided to step outside my comfort zone and experiment with some new things in the front window box.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the resulting combination is a bit of a fail.

Before I start listing the plants for you, I’ll point out that this window box faces north and is in full shade which limits the plant options considerably.

My starting out point was a Streptocarpus Ladyslippers™ Deep Blue Vein that I found at the Amish nursery in Wisconsin that nnK and I visited in spring.

I’ve grown this plant as a house plant in the past, but had never put it outside in a planter.  These plants were just loaded with gorgeous purple flowers when I saw them at the nursery so I thought they’d add a fabulous pop of color.  And actually, they did look great for about 6 or 7 weeks, but lately the blooms have petered off quite a bit.  After doing a bit of research I learned that temperatures above 80° will cause that.  So … maybe not a great choice for an outdoor planter in summer.  They also haven’t grown much, so they are getting swallowed up by some of the more vigorous plants.

My next ‘mistake’ was taking the advice of a random stranger at the garden center who suggested that Dusty Miller would be a great companion to the Streptocarpus.

I hadn’t grown this plant in forever.  I can remember planting it in the ground way back when I was new to gardening.  So when she suggested it, I thought ‘why not?’  After all, I’m experimenting with some new options.

But I have to say, I don’t really love it.  It’s doing great, but I think I’m just not a fan of ‘silver’ foliage.

Which leads me to my next plant choice, Dichondra Silver Falls.

I’d been hearing about this plant on various gardening vlogs lately and I needed something to tie in with the Dusty Miller, so I gave it a shot.  I will say that it is also performing exceptionally well, I mean, just look at it (photo above).  It clearly loves this spot.

But again, I don’t love that silver foliage.  You know what I think it is?  To me it looks like these plants have a bad case of powdery mildew.

I also opted to add a second pop of color with a couple of Amstel Netja Dark begonias.

An Amstel begonia is a cross between a tuberous begonia and a wax begonia.  Again, I hadn’t grown begonias in years.  I’d never had good luck with them in the past, I tend to overwater them leading to root rot.  They are rather picky about not sitting in wet soil.  But these newer varieties are improvements over those I planted in the past, so why not give it a shot.

And once again, I was drawn in by that gorgeous color.  It’s always tricky to find a plant that will bloom reliably in the shade.

Although these have done fairly well with continuous blooms for color, they also haven’t really put on any additional bulk.  Much like the Streptocarpus, they aren’t holding their own against the other plants in the box.

I did put a couple of old favorites in the window box too including a Dark Eyes fuchsia.

These always do really well in this north facing location.  They tend to be messy plants, dropping those flowers all over the place, so I wouldn’t use these in a spot where they would hang over a deck or patio.  But there is a garden beneath this window box and the flowers all fall down under the plants below.

Finally, I also planted some Diamond Frost Euphorbia in the window box.

It always makes a great filler, but this year it is quickly taking over and almost smothering the other plants.

So, in the end, I’m calling this year’s front window box a bit of a fail.  Although most of the plants look rather pretty up close, in combination and from a distance they just look rather anemic to me.

I don’t think I would repeat any of them, except the fuchsia.

I would use the euphorbia again too, especially if I ever decide to do another all white and green combo like the one I did in 2014.

That one included the euphorbia along with white impatiens, a white caladium, some jester ferns and some ivy.  And it was one of my favorites.

It was a fun one to transition into fall too.  I simply pulled out the impatiens and added white mums and pumpkins, and some flower heads that were turning green from one of my hydrangeas.

I have to give the award for ‘most spectacular combination’ in a window box to this one from 2021 though.

That combination of coleus, sweet potato vine and lemon coral sedum just pops.

There were some white New Guinea impatiens in that mix too, but as you can see they got rather swallowed up as well.

In the end, I learned some valuable lessons from the choices I made for this year’s window box.  I think next year I may try another all white combination again.  In the meantime, I may try to salvage this year’s combo by pulling out the Streptocarpus and the begonias and replacing them with something else.  We’ll see.

But how about you?  Have you learned any lessons from garden fails?  Leave a comment and let me know.

I’m not gonna lie, Hint of Lime Tostitos are one of my favorites.  Especially paired with a mango salsa.  I also love adding a hint of lime to my Diet Coke.

But today I want to talk about a different kind of lime, a vibrant pop of chartreuse foliage in the garden.  It’s a great way to brighten up a shady area, as well as a good way to add interest to a perennial border that doesn’t have much blooming currently (like mine).

One of my favorite perennials with bright lime green foliage is ‘Gold Heart’ Dicentra spectabilis, or bleeding heart.

That photo is a couple of years old, bleeding heart blooms in the spring so mine is not currently blooming.  But I actually grow this one for the foliage rather than the flower, isn’t it fabulous?

Lamium, or dead nettles (which is an awful name and that’s why I never call it that), is one of my favorite lime green ground covers.  It’s practically evergreen, even here in Minnesota.  It pops up in the spring looking green as the snow is melting all around it.

There are many different varieties of lamium with varying leaf colors including some pretty white and/or silver versions like the Pink Pewter or the Sterling Silver.  There are also a few varieties that I really don’t like at all, like the one called Yellow Archangel.

I don’t know the precise variety of the one shown above because it was a hand-me-down from a fellow gardener, however, I do also have a patch of the Lemon Frost variety in one spot that I purchased at a garden center.

It leans just a bit more towards lemon rather than lime.

One characteristic common to pretty much all of the plants that I’m mentioning in this post is that the more sun they get, the yellower and brighter their foliage.

Golden Creeping Jenny, Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’, is a good example of that.  I took this next photo at the St. Anthony Park garden tour a couple of weeks ago.  The creeping jenny in the lower left of the frame gets quite a bit of sun.

My creeping jenny is in full shade, one of the shadiest areas of my shade garden in fact, and I wouldn’t even call it lime green at this point.

So that’s something to keep in mind with all of the plants I’m sharing today.

I do have a couple of shrubs that fit into my ‘hint of lime’ category.  The first is a Morden Golden Glow Elderberry.

Laura of Garden Answer recommended elderberry as a good substitute for Japanese maples.  They have a very similar leaf structure, but are much hardier in cold climates like my zone 4b garden (they are hardy in zones 3 to 9).  The photo above was taken when I first brought the plant home from the garden center.

I ended up planting it in a fairly shady spot, and the color is definitely less yellow or more lime now.

The second shrub on my list is the ‘Tiger Eyes’ sumac.  Unfortunately, my 8′ Tiger Eyes died back to the ground last winter.  If you plant one of these in our area, you’ll find that it is one of the last plants to break dormancy.  Every spring I wonder if mine is dead, and then it eventually sprouts new leaves.  But not this year.  So we cut it back to the ground.

But I’m happy to report that it has sent up some big new shoots, so all is not lost.

A big bonus to this one is that the leaves turn a vibrant orange to red in autumn, it’s fantastic for fall color.

Unlike most of the plants I’ve mentioned, the sumac is not a shade loving plant.  Mine gets a bit of shade from the carriage house and thus has always shot out nearly perpendicular to reach the sun.

There are lots of fabulous annuals with lime green foliage too.  Last year I had Wasabi coleus and Lemon Coral sedum (far right) in my front window box.

Lime green paired with deep purple foliage is always a great combo, like this sweet potato vine paired with a dark purple Oxalis.

I’ve left the most obvious example of lime green foliage plants for last, hostas!  You know I love ’em.  And there are lots and lots of options for lime green in hostas.

One of my favorites is the ‘Sun Power’ hosta.

This one positively glows in the garden.

I have a smaller solid lime colored hosta in multiple spots in my garden.  Once again, this was a hand-me-down plant, probably from my friend Sue, so I don’t know the name of it.

But over the years, many divisions have given me about 20 of them scattered throughout my shade gardens.  They create the perfect background for the spotted Pulmonaria ‘Raspberry Splash’.

Of course, there are also many, many options for variegated hostas that can add a hint of lime to your garden.  Sunset Grooves is a smaller one that has a lovely pop of chartreuse in the middle of each leaf.

Of course, the latest hint of lime I’ve added to my garden is an  Aralia cordata ‘Sun King‘.  After seeing so many of them at the garden tour I attended a couple of weeks ago, I had to get one for myself.

It’s small right now, but I’m hoping it will grow to fill in that space entirely.  I’ll be sure to keep you all posted on how that works out.

In the meantime, my sister and I are headed out to another garden tour today, this time put on by the South Saint Paul Garden Club (thank you Jayne for the heads up on this one).  One of the gardens featured belongs to my old friend Jackie, I toured her garden for you guys here on the blog back in 2018 (you can see those posts here and here).  So I’m really looking forward to getting another tour of her garden and others today!

So tell me, what’s your favorite plant for adding a hint of lime to the garden.  Leave a comment and let me know!