Shade Gardening: My shade garden progress, 1 by Noreaster

Noreaster wrote:
I think I have four, maybe five Japanese Painted ferns in that bed that were quite small last year when I bought them...they are really going crazy in there and are engulfing the Love Pat hosta at this point. I know I'll have to thin them out next year for sure. There are three Bridal Veil astilbe, and those put up a lot more blooms this year yet the foliage remained fairly compact- which was a surprise, but it works really well...I'm wondering how much those will expand next year- hopefully not too much!

My Father in Law helped me prepare this bed using some really old compost that he has on his property, and I think he added wood ash, too. He hasn't seen my garden since mid last summer but is coming over tomorrow to look at it, and I can't wait to show him how much things have filled in.