Tag Archives: Shade Gardens

Weekly Travel Theme: Peaceful

Posted on by Laurie

The other morning, I noticed some beautiful early light starting to peek through the plants, so I captured this shot of it illuminating the autumn ferns in my shade garden. It was a very quiet time of day and, I think, produced a rather peaceful image which is why I decided to share it for the Weekly Travel Theme by Where’s My Backpack?

Image

Happy Arbor Day!

Posted on by Laurie

When I realized that today is Arbor Day, I just had to take some pictures of one of my favorite trees – Japanese Maple, “Garnet”. Garnet has lacy leaves that are bright red when they first emerge in the Spring and then again in the Fall. In between they are green with red stems. I’ve been shaping the specimen tree that we have for 12 years. It is about 4′ tall and 6′ across. I think that it will be a while before I see it at its mature height of 10′.  Garnet’s delicate countenance brings me pleasure whenever I work in the shade garden and I enjoy imagining its future size and shape every time I snip a little here and there. You know what they say, “to garden is to have hope for the future.”Japanese Maple Leaves Close Up

Hostas and Heucheras

Posted on by Laurie

My big project for the week is rearranging my shade garden to accommodate an Empress Wu hosta that my mother-in-law kindly bought for me over the weekend. Empress Wu gets to be 5′ wide and 4′ tall, so some (i.e. a lot of) moving of plants here and there is definitely in order.  In planning the new layout, I’m trying to come up with a pleasant design in terms of the plants’ varying heights, textures and colors.

“Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination” – Mrs. C.W. Earle Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden (1897)

… but of course, if one is a gardener, exercise of the imagination tends to lead to exercise of the entire body. Mrs. C.W. Earle forgot to mention that part. After all that digging I’ve done so far, boy is my body tired.

Here’s a picture that I took – while taking a break from digging – of one of my favorite foliage arrangements. (Bottom right, heuchera Plum Pudding; bottom left, hosta Liberty; top, unknown hosta variety.) This corner of the garden I am happy with so I am going to leave it be … for now ; )  Happy gardening!