Good morning from the garden!

This morning I thought I would update you on a few of the garden projects that I’ve shared in the past.  These are mostly projects that have taken 3 or more (in one case, many more) years to come to fruition.

As Audrey Hepburn supposedly said, to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.  Gardening is rarely an instant gratification sort of endeavor, that’s for sure.

If you’ve been following me for a few years you may remember that I attempted to plant a lilac hedge back in 2011.  OMG, that means it was 13 years ago.  So yeah, this one has required A LOT of patience.

I initially planted a row of the fancy hybrid type lilacs and after 5 years it looked like this …

Wow, that’s embarassing, isn’t it?  What a straggly mess.

The flowers were gorgeous.

But the hedge wasn’t providing any sort of privacy along our back property line, and it certainly didn’t look good, even when in full flower.

Over the next several years I pulled out those fancy lilacs one or two at a time and replaced them.  At first I replaced a couple of them with common lilacs.

The common lilacs have performed beautifully and are now at least 12′ tall and doing the job they were meant to do.

We can no longer see our neighbor’s son’s fishing boat from our back dining room window.

But the flowers on the common lilac just aren’t terribly exciting.

So over the past two years I have gone back to putting in the fancy hybrids (because I never learn).  This time around I gave them a little winter protection from the rabbits though, and that seemed to help quite a bit.

And Mr. Q has been really careful not to spray them with weed killer, instead we are hand pulling the creeping charlie that keeps threatening to take over from the neighbor’s yard (I don’t blame her for not tackling them on her side, she is elderly and has a bad hip, she used to have beautiful gardens and lawn but she has had to let them go).

So far so good with the two newest lilacs, although they need to put on quite a bit more height before the hedge looks more uniform.

However, I’m once again having mixed results with the the hybrids at the other end of the hedge.  They started out looking great this year, but currently a couple of them look a bit sickly.

I’m going to try a couple of things, and then wait and see how they look next year.  However, in the end I may have to pull out a couple more and replace them with those boring common lilacs.

In the meantime, I’ve begun another experiment with this hedge.  I planted three clematis at the base of the lilacs.  They should wind their way up the branches and eventually provide some additional interest after the lilacs themselves bloom early in the season.

Once again, we’ll have to wait and see if that works out.

My goal with this hedge was to provide a natural barrier, but not add a lot of extra maintenance.  So I wasn’t going for a neatly trimmed hedge.  The proper way to prune a lilac is to remove approximately 1/3 of the stems all the way to the ground.  In other words, you’re not supposed to just shear the top off to create a uniform height throughout like you would with a more formal hedge.  If you want that sort of look, I wouldn’t choose lilacs.

My next experiment in the garden was planting a Golden Shadows Pagoda Dogwood in the fern bed in 2022.

The Pagoda Dogwood is an understory tree that will grow in partial shade.  Mine, however, is planted in nearly full shade.  For that reason I really wasn’t sure if it would thrive in this spot.

But it is looking really good this year, and I can finally see it peeking out above the ferns.

I suspect it will be another several years at least before it starts to look like I want it to, so I’ll just have to continue to be patient on that one.

Next up is another experiment, this time with planting a shrub in the shade garden.  I planted a Morden Golden Glow Elderberry in 2021.

This is another one that will grow in partial shade, but I planted it in what would probably be considered full shade.  It does get some late evening sun though.

It is growing somewhat slowly, I’m guessing that’s due to the shade.  The full height range for this plant is 4′ to 5′, but I’d rather it stay on the smaller end.

So far, so good.

Last up I thought I’d share a plant that hasn’t required much patience.  You may remember that last summer I went on the St. Anthony Park garden tour and discovered a trendy plant that everyone seemed to be growing.

This plant has a lot of names.  You can call it Aralia cordata, or ‘Sun King’ Golden Japanese Spikenard.  I just call mine Spike.

Spike is loving life in this nearly full shade spot.  In fact, he’s crowding out a couple of neighboring plants that I’m going to have to now move elsewhere.  But that’s OK, I think this plant is gorgeous and worth the space.

Now, how about you?  Do you have any long-term planting projects like my lilac hedge?  Or maybe a favorite trendy new plant that looks great in year one?  Leave a comment and let me know.