The front of my house is shaded by a large black walnut tree and some smaller trees on the side. It may get 2 hours of sun here and there but not full sun. Is that Brunnera? What are the puple flowers?
Erin
Groundcovers for shade
What is the plant on the right hand side of the citronelle. behind the fern.
There isn't any Brunnera in that garden. The Brunnera is in the silvery area I'm revamping. Where is the plant you thought might have been Brunnera? Here's the next photo going to the right.
The purple flowers were Heliotrope. I'll be buying them again since they were fragrant but now I can't find the label (of course).
Right side of the Citronelle is a Euphorbia. There are quite a few in that garden.
Thanks, Cindy.
Pirl, you really have the knack for color/texture/foliage combinations. Terri
maybe it was the heliotrope I was talking about. lol. The plant directly in front of the heuchera. I have the name on the tip of my tongue but it won't come out! I absolutely love your garden!
Erin
Thank you, Terri! We're down to 29 gardens but this one is our favorite, as if you couldn't tell!
Erin - if it's a purple flower then it's Heliotrope and if I find the name I'll post it.
The order of plants from left to right is: Ginger (shiny, rounded leaf), Heuchera Obsidian, Hosta.
Is this the one you mean? If so, it's the Heuchera Obsidian.
nope, its ginger. I was mistaking it for brunnera. Thanks!
The ginger came from a neighbor and I love the shine of it as well as the fact the slugs leave it alone. I'm forced to use slug bait to protect the other hostas so the Savannah Bird Girl statue can't offer seed to the birds as she was meant to do or I'd be upset if any bird died from eating the bait.
Cindy - once spring arrives for both of us we can compare PH notes. Mine gets no food, no extra attention and thrives on neglect but that always seems to be the case. When we love a plant we tend to dote on it as I did with one daylily that I killed with too much water at the end of the season when it was trying to go dormant.
Unless it's a moisture problem. Are yours more wet than dry? Ours are very dry.
Was last year your first year with the Lysmachia? Sometimes it takes a year for them to get established and come spring you may feel certain not much is coming back but that's how they begin each season here - very sparse. Here's the difference between May 4 and June 28:
I checked a few sites and "well drained" was the constant refrain. Here's one brief paragraph:
Moneywort can be planted in any location, sun, shade, part sun. This hardy little perennial doesn't really seem to care where you plant it. It does prefer a little direct sunshine but will grow in total shade. Plant Moneywort in fertile well drained soil. It will adapt to most soil types well.
Oh my goodness. I have it in a clay patch where it sits in water and freezes after a heavy winter rain. It doesn't even blink . . . it actually volunteered there. Of course, our cold temperatures don't usually get below 25. Last year it did get into the teens though and I don't think I "lost" any lysimachia.
I actually have it in my full sun and it can go all summer without any extra watering. Again, my full sun and dry summer isn't as extreme as yours, but that's still something. Suffice to say I haven't found a place on my property where it won't grow . . .
Same here. Dropped pieces grow just like the Angelina sedum.
Moneywort has always been a runaway train for me, too...not that I mind. If it gets in the way, it's easy to yank out. My first adventures in moneywort were at my old house in heavy clay soil. It spilled over the edge of a container I had sitting in the garden and next thing I knew I had a patch of it. The following year, it was a much bigger patch. It was baking in full sun and growing in the lousiest soil, but it didn't seem to care. It's hardy stuff!
Yes, and Angelina, too. I had it growing epiphytically in the cracks in between my deck boards until I power washed it off. So I gave it its own spot in the garden and it looks perfect throughout winter.
Maybe Cindy would consider Angelina if the Lysimachia doesn't cooperate this year. It's so similar in color but not shape.
Pirl - I like the color of the Angelina with the Ajuga.
Maybe the word "fertile" is the key 'cause that spot ain't. I actually have Sedum ternatum growing in the same bed for 15 years. It's just as sparse. Sometimes I think I've lost it altogether. I am curious to see if there's any improvement this spring in that bed. Of course I had to amend the soil last summer around the stuff rather than digging up the whole thing. My original vision was a sea of L. with Heuchera 'Palace Purple' erupting from it. (I don't put the pricey Heucheras down in that area - just some of the 'PP' volunteers.) The H. expired over time - it didn't even like that area. Changed it a bit last year by adding some hardy maidenhair fern (which seems to do well without supplemental water) and Astilbe 'Pumilla' divisions for a little more texture and color. Most of the plants are short in stature in that little area. Behind it is some Epimedium 'Sulphureum', again playing up the yellow.
Angelina grows in the cracks in rocks here so it tells me that it enjoys dry and good drainage. It goes wild but it's even easier to rip out than Lysimachia. Since your PP died I'm only guessing the problem is soil or light. Soil seems to be the more important of the two.
Ferns demand so little in return for their beauty. I have a few in that garden.
I have the identical same Epimedium and it filled in so nicely.
E. 'Sulphureum' does very well in that location. It does tend to ramble just a bit so I do hack off bits and replant elsewhere. I did notice your ferns in your pic. The real trooper in that lower garden is Japanese Painted fern - don't know that it's even a named variety but it does very well with neglect and drying out.
The Japanese Silver Painted Fern does well here no matter where I put it so I think the credit must go to the compost. Every plant gets compost as it's planted and then as a mulch. I love the way that fern glows in shade.
It's a good day to ramble, Cindy. We have on and off rain here and the threat of more snow. You know it's depressing when removing wallpaper is a thrill.
Dreary here too. So much snow, and now rain. One of the ground covers that I keep trying and have absolutely no success with is lily of the valley. Everyone else seems to have it go crazy, invasive even, without any care. I want it to go crazy in a certain large bounded area, and I've bought batches of 100s of pips several times now, and still no luck. Only a handful even grow, and they definitely haven't spread. Funny, how the same plant performs so differently for people.
Mine prefers dry over wet if that's of any help at all.
Same here. My dad gave me some years ago when I first started my garden. They do tend to roam where they're not wanted though. It wouldn't be so bad if they formed a nice clump, increasing in an orderly way. But they'll pop up a foot or two away, invading another plant's personal space and have to be yanked out. Not always easy to do - those roots are tough. I would only use these in their own dedicated space and not in partnership with any other plant or shrub.
I do have a Sedum that's snuck into the lower garden from somewhere. Don't know if it moved in via carried-in seed or via a little piece of plant hitchhiking on some creature. It's more of a chartreuse color and is growing in the least hospitable place in the whole garden - clay-packed timber framed stairs. Perhaps I should try move some over to the L. spot - you never know if competition will make the L. stronger...
I totally agree with Cindy about the LOV.
How true and how interesting! Sedums are such great plants since they survive everything we gardeners do with them.
Oooh. Creeping Charlie. Talk to stormyla about that one. She apparently has it in her lawn . . .
How come weeds aren't as fussy as the plants we really want to grow? They adapt to sun or shade, wet or dry, shovels and Round Up!
Yes, I have to marvel at Shot Weed, Buttercup, and Stinky Bob. They are the most prolific ones here. At least the Stinky Bob smells good when you pull it (though I seem to be the only person who thinks that).
I never heard of it either but I had an ex that fit the description.
Houttuynia is so pretty but far too aggressive and smells like the famous Blazing Saddles bean cooking scene must have smelled like.
Herb Robert - a geranium relative. I guess it's called Geranium robertianum.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=herb+robert&oq=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=gYyFS8-sBI3llQfas9TZAQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQsAQwAA
Pirl, I agree that Houttuynia is beautiful. I didn't know that it smelled bad. I think I'll treat it like I treat vinca and put it in a big box. Just need to make sure that I check every now and then to make sure that nothing has snuck out.
CM, I've been trying to figure out where the Herb Robert came from. It is supposedly an escapee from a local flower garden and was first reported on the loose here in 1911. Which leads me to wonder how/where people imported and distributed garden plants back then. Seattle was still pretty young at the time.