Your Woodland Shade Favorites 2

Two more inches due tonight and we've had 4" over the past two days. Wish I could send some to you. We're due for more tomorrow.

That's a lot of rain, pirl. Luckily, we've missed out on the deluge over the state line in IL all summer but we've had a nice amount. I've noticed that the trees in our area have not yet taken on that dusty coloring that comes with hot dry weather towards the end of summer.

It's far better than the extreme heat and the awful drought plaguing so many.

You are absolutely right about that. I can't begin to imagine all of the drought effects on anything living there.

Catching up on what you guys have been up to while I was away.
Unfortunately, we've missed out on all the rain. I'm jealous.

I have several dark-leaved cimifugas, incl James Compton and Hillside Black Beauty.
I've been disappointed by the greening of the leaves in the shade.
I think they at least need 'brightness' to stay dark. My wooded yard is just too dark.
I paid a gazillion dollars last fall to thin the canopy to let more light in.
I don't see that it helped much.
And I'm still despondent over how they trampled my garden.

As for the deer liking one variety of hosta vs another ... my deer are definitely not so fussy.
They eat anything, anytime, anywhere.
Incl leathery corrugated hostas like Deep Blue Sea & Alligator Shoes.
And my caladiums. And hydrangeas. And lilies.
I've been sticking with smaller hosta - I guess they're too little for the deer to bother with.
But of course, then you have to deal with the bunnies. Sigh...

Give Blood Meal a try for the bunnies. It works for me.

Here the deer will only eat five hosta cultivars but the flowers on every hosta. They found another entry to the terrace gardens but didn't touch the hostas under the deer mesh or those under the stylish blue tarp - LOL. They didn't eat any of the mini hostas here either.

Upstate NY and in MA they eat Japanese maples but they haven't touched mine since they prefer the few roses they ignored for the last seven weeks.

I'm sure my neighbors are jealous of the designer sheet arrangement over the ugly green (portable) fencing and the chairs blocking the path! So glad there wasn't a garden tour this year.

Amazing what we do to keep the deer out. When my green plastic snow fencing started failing on me (too old and brittle), I resorted to stringing up camo rope from tree to tree. I even tried predator urine to no avail.
Has anyone grown Disporopsis pernyi? Got an email from Sunshine Gardens (Barry Glick) about them. Totally unfamiliar with this one although it looks much like Polygonatum.

Sunday morning I went out (in the rain) to check on the tomatoes only to find that one of the 4-legged devils with antlers had taken a big bite out of my only red brandywine. He did not get the whole tomato since I had it blocked off. Most of the plants are covered with netting, but life is not perfect.

Peter the bunny is not able to get to my plants in containers, so he is helping himself to the plantains (weeds) growing up through the crushed rock. No idea what the chipmunks are feasting on.

Cindy, I have several clumps of disporopsis pernyi.
They grow easily, though none of mine are super big yet.
It's shade tolerant and looks nice in the woodland.
Flowers aren't significant - mainly for foliage.
Here are two views of same plant.
This is from a few years ago - it looks better now,
but it's pitch black outside, so this will have to do.

By the way, I'm not sure what insect has been nibbling on it...

Here's the disporopsis from a side view.
Looks like a miniature forest.

Wee - I figured you might have that one. How do the flowers compare to a Polygonatum in real life? My Polygonatum tends to wander a bit underground, throwing up shoots a foot or more away from the main clump so it doesn't have the impact of a tighter cluster.
I'm thinking I may have the same "greening" issues here with the dark Cimis so I haven't invested in any of them to date.
Sorry to hear about the garden trampling. A lot of tree crews don't respect what's growing underneath. Today the tree crew finished taking out two 60+ ft oaks next to driveway and garage and near my little greenhouse. Very nerve-wracking so I just "had" to be out there the whole time. They did a great job so I can relax until it's time to take the half-dead oak out over the back patio. Most of it had to be roped down as neighbor didn't want anything falling on her lawn, including the branches that were hanging over her house. Sheesh! The stumps get ground down this afternoon so I'll have to either haul the sawdust to the compost pile or, if I have the time, top-dress with some compost first and then lightly mulch with the sawdust. Next on the agenda is moving part-shade loving plants out of full sun.

I can feel your pain, Cindy.
My wife forbids me to be within a country mile when the tree guys are here.
She thinks it's best for everyone for me not to be around.

But I loved the gigantic pile of wood mulch they left for me.
Some of the best soil in my woodland is a result of prior woodmulch decay.

I'm not exactly mister 'Johnny-on-the-Spot' when it comes to moving the shade plants.
I've got dozens of hostas living in full sun exposure as result of trees being cut down.
It's got to be 4 yrs ago, by now. Ooops... There always seem to be more urgent chores!
Frankly, they do surprisingly well in full sun, that is, until about this time of year.
But they're mowed down by deer by now anyway, so doesn't really matter that much.
One of these days, I'll get around to moving all those sun-exposed hostas.

As for the disporopsis, I don't think I've paid any attention to flowering, so I suspect not very spectacular. But my disporopsis is definitely more dense than my polygonatums. It's more of a foliage plant, I think.

Looking at the pile of sawdust this morning - don't know if I'm up to the physical challenge of hauling the stuff from the front of the property, down the stairs to the lower garden to the rear of the property where my big compost bin is located. It's a lot of stuff! While I hadn't originally intended on mulching with the fresh stuff with the composting action pulling nutrients out of the soil for the process, I'm wondering about adding some low nitrogen fertilizer and/or coffee grounds to it and going ahead with the thin mulching. The sawdust does have quite a bit of dirt mixed in as well as the stump grinding guy went about 8 inches below grade to ensure future grass growth and level out the root flare mound that had been created.
I do know that I'm taking out some Campanula that I've held on to over the years even though they look totally terrible this time of year. Forget which variety (one of the hybrids) but after blooming, the leaves turn brown and fall off and I'm left with a bunch of bare stems. I think it's time for it to go. May have to relocate the Delphinium tricorne, various columbine. I am concerned about the full sun effect on 'Gold Bullion' bachelor button and toadlilies. And now there may be too much hot afternoon sun for a few David Austin roses as well. I am looking forward to some additional sun and the increased light levels all the way to the back of the property so I don't mean to sound negative.

I don't think you sound negative--you're just planning, and that's always good!

Thanks, Ky. Actually, I'd love to make a little room in that now-sunny bed to plant a few veggies in among the perennials and roses. Decorative trellises with cucumbers and zucchini, happier tomato plants, etc. I do grow a few tomatoes but production hasn't been great due to limited sun up to this point. But now I'm not limited to impatiens for color in that bed. Yippee. 20+ years of buying impatiens is getting a little boring.

Pirl -
I know I owed you the name of the fencing I'm currently using to keep out deer but not sure if this was the right thread. It's called EZFence and it comes in 4' x 100' rolls for about $50/roll. It has sewn-in pockets that slip over a plastic sleeve that's put over metal fence posts and then a cap goes over the top. Supposed to be easier to move around (except for maybe the stakes?). I cut one roll in half horizontally and added the 2 ft to the 4 ft roll for a total of 6 ft in height. It's worked fine for almost a year now. Sorry it took so long for me to get the info for you.

My deer fencing came from Benner Gardens on line.
They have 4', 6' and 8' heights in rolls of varying length.
It's heavy black plastic, but from a distance really isn't seen.
Unfortunately, after buying a bunch of it, I found it unrealistic to fence the whole yard,
so I fence off individual plants or groups of plants, which is totally visible.
Along with the wire cages of various shapes and sizes & bunny fencing,
it results in the lovely 'fortress look' some of us are familiar with.

The Fortress is what we should name our gardens!

Thanks for all the fencing information, Cindy and Scott. We're considering black aluminum fencing to at least close off all the terrace gardens to the deer but it would shut me out, too, from weeding or tending the plants. Aside from that I'd need four gates so it might end up being impractical.

"Fortress" is right. I even patrol my 150 ft line for any damage caused by raccoons. They can really tear up non-metallic fencing. For whatever reason, I don't have rabbits to contend with so I'm considering myself lucky.
Pirl - I wonder if you could stretch a bit of plastic fencing across the opening that you can unhook to gain access to the fenced in parts?

We do have areas with the ugly green wire fencing that I unhook to gain access to the rest of the gardens in the back. At night I close it and drape it with a large white sheet - such a sophisticated look. Maybe Fine Gardening will come to take photos of it!

LOL I want an autographed copy of that issue!

They could do an April Fool's issue and my sheet might qualify for the cover of the magazine!

Pirl, are you back from your trip? Sharon

My dad never had any problem with deer. And our freezer was always full. He took care of the rabbits the same way.

I have heard that deer won't want to jump a fence if they can't see to the other side. Maybe the sheet is a good idea after all. You could always paint a mural or design on the sheet for a "garden art" aesthetic. :)

I've heard the same thing and it makes sense. The deer won't leap a 3' tall gate if a brick wall is 2' behind it. While we were gone I think they learned to stomp the fencing and designer sheet (Holly Hobbie - that tells you how old it was) but now I have it all back in place.

Pirl, you do have persistent deer. I did read an article in the Chicago Tribune this morning that said the deer populations have really grown dramatically and that it's not just a matter of them losing more of their habitat to development.

They weren't here 50 years ago but were driven east by developments to the west. They devastate farmers' crops and most vineyards out here have the deer proof fencing. It's fine for that use but ugly in a garden area.

Wow - I never thought of the deer going after grapes. This isn't good grape country although some home gardeners grow a vine or two for table eating. They grow more up in MI.

We now have over 40 vineyards for our not so large North Fork of Long Island. They grow better here than on the South Fork (Hamptons) since we have sunnier weather and more growing days.

Here's one vineyard I love since it's easy to take photos without the deer fencing...they'll learn eventually to install it if they want to harvest anything.

That's one beautiful photo! I'm hoping though that we won't have to look at snow for at least 3 more months. It does look alike a young vineyard although they do prune grapes pretty hard, don't they?

Thanks. I'm not eager for snow either but the heat this past summer kept me as house bound as the snow does. The vineyards prune according to the "Four-Arm Kniffen" method to assure abundant and flavor filled grapes. The deer are not aware of that method and just devour all they can.

If only deer could be trained...
My yellow waxy bells (Kirengeshoma) are blooming and it seems like the flowers are a bigger than last year (which was very dry). I think it's one of my favs since it blooms late. Pink Chelone is also blooming. Luckily my plant hasn't spread outrageously but it is stalwart, blooms every year. Sadly, the only things left to bloom are the various Tricyrtis and mums.
The flowers on my Kousa dogwood hung on through the summer which I though a little odd this year. Wonder what that's about.

Cindy, deer CAN be trained. We trained ours years ago to eat out of our bird feeders. It was really easy too. . .all we had to do was leave the feeders out overnight and the deer ate every last morsel...

Wait a minute... Did I say WE trained THEM?

LOL

We have our suet feeders hanging on what we thought was a raccoon-proof pole...I busted the li'l boogers shimmying up there, so now we take the suet cages in every night!

I know the deer come through the backyard every so often and eat half the seed in our stationary feeder. Our's generates a battery-operated jolt to the squirrels though. And the slinky hanging from underneath the bird feeder has absolutely deterred the squirrels from climbing up the pole as well.

We haven't had any problems with the squirrels getting to our feeders in years. My husband made steel squirrel baffles a long time ago and he replaces them every few years if they get ratty looking. We love the squirrels, though, so I put out food for them plus they also get the seeds that the birds drop while eating.

We also love the deer. In the Winter when we have more deer in our yard I bring in some of the feeders at night, but I always leave a little dried corn out for them.

I know...we're real softies...but one of the things that we especially love about our area is the wildlife!

While I can appreciate the wildlife here (from a distance), I don't want to repeat the year that the deer ate almost every leaf off of my 20 year old Rhodies. And I wouldn't mind the raccoons wandering through infrequently but we have a "herd" of 8 (last year it was 13) foraging in our yard every night because the idiot next door feeds them.

back40bean, where it your cabin? I live in Lake Toxaway.
As for ajuga, mine are wild but very healthy. They bloom every spring and I love the colorful, fuzzy leaves. They are on the lower part of my property and therefore spead downhill where I leave them be.
I have had daffodils come up through them before.

Howdy to everyone, does Quince qualify as a woodlander? These begun to bloom here due to unusually warm winter condition.

woodspirit1, our cabin is in the Sylva area. I believe you are between Cashiers and Brevard? Not so far from us but it seems a long way because of the mountain roads. The pictures I've seen of Lake Toxaway are gorgeous. Of course all of western NC is beautiful to me and we love our place.