Your Woodland Shade Favorites 3

I planted my first (common) Baptisia next to a small tree that proceeded to grow 50' tall so the plant was in almost total shade, receiving only morning sun and it thrived. Last year's hurricane eliminated the tree so we'll see how it does in sun now. The easiest way to get young plants is to dig from the outside edges of the mother plant.I've done that successfully. Baptisias tend to develop large tap roots rendering them difficult to impossible to remove. I do have another, Twilight Prairieblues, that has been planted in mostly sun but hasn't yet flowered.

Lily, Cindy, and Rouge, thank you all so much for the bap info and suggestions. I do think that I will put the second in a sunny location.

To give you an idea of size, here are two of the five last year.

And a third three years ago, against the house, slowly being shaded out by a lilac.

One of my favorite uses for baps is hiding thick lily stems, like those of Silk Road.

Now you see them (not pretty!)

Now you don't!

WOW you guys, you have GOT to stop sharing all these GORGEOUS photos 'cause I'm NEVER gonna be able to bring home a paycheck!!!! < =D (adding Baptistia to my shopping list now....) (... Oooooh DH is gonna disown me sooo bad!!...)

I have wanted to add a Bap to my garden but space is at a bit of a premium and is it not the case that their period of bloom in relatively short?

Yes, it is short but the seed heads are quite nice. They turn black and are interesting.

Rogue, you have a good point. In many ways baps are like small shrubs that bloom, like lilacs and viburnum carlesis, for a relatively short time. But the foliage is really quite lovely, and they require absolutely no care. They are exceptionally drought tolerant - I never water mine - and they fix their own nitrogen, so they require no fertilizer. In fact, you should never fertilize them.

I use them to fill in spaces. Actually, I loved them so much that I looked for areas that needed coverage. I would not recommend them as foundation plants. There are people in my community who use them that way and it doesn't work. During the winter they fall apart and in spring you cut them back. Rather like ornamental grasses. Sunny spaces are at a premium in my new yard so I had to choose just two from the palette of miscanthus that I used to grow and chose Adagio, which is relatively short.

But they are spectacular!!!!! No care, nice structure, lovely flowers, attractive structure. And I'm not always practical.

I think of them as being like amsonia or dictamnus. I was looking at all three and frankly thought there was no comparison. They will take your breath away!

Oh, and postman - Munchkin! I love that place. I ordered bloodroot from them years ago and it thrived. It's at my old house. I had ordered some from another company two years before. When I dug them up to add his, Gene's plants were bigger than the ones that had been in for two years. And athyrium nipponicum 'Ursula' s Red'. And Baneberry. I actually get his newsletter. If he shipped shrubs I would order them from him. FYI, if you want incredible shrubs look at Plant and Gnome. 35 reviews on Dave's Garden - 34 positive and one neutral. I just got 3 three foot hydrangea querquefolia Snow Queens for $70, and that includes shipping via FX. Forest Farm quality plants at bargain basement prices:

http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/2494/

The multiplexes were just so expensive. I was concerned about that particular plant taking a hike!

Oh gosh - another website to drool over. Donna, have you noticed any issues with their plants coming out of the winter? Just wondering because of having been grown in a warmer climate and then the shock of a midwestern winter.

Cindy,

Surprisingly, no. Chris (the Chief Executive Gnome) takes this into consideration. He asked if he could ship the plants in Mid March, and I said yes. He tends to ship in March or April (and will negotiate this) so that the plants I have had in the past had several months to acclimate. And the plants have been hardy in our zone. The previous plants have done very well - I have NEVER lost one of his.

It's like Antique Rose Emporium. Their plants are raised in Texas. I would ask for shipping in April, they would bloom in June, and have been rocking out for years.

He is incredible - you can actually get him on the phone. He actually responds quickly to emails. It's a very small operation. High quality small companies, like Plant and Gnome and Munchkin, have become some of my favorites.

I forgot to mention that the box with the hydrangeas weighed a ton. How he arranged $10 shipping via Fedex is a mystery to me. And the plants were very securely wrapped. My biggest problem was getting a VERY HEAVY box to the back yard. I gasped at the size of the plants.

I loved shopping at ForestFarm but the shipping just got too prohibitive. Finding good nurseries east of the Miss is always a good thing.

Bluestones new prices and sizes actually drove me back to Forest Farm, where I placed an order for perennials. They do something very interesting now. As you are placing an order, they give you feedback on how many more plants you can get into a container. I was placing an order and they noted that I could get x number of tubes or x number of size 1 plants into a container for no higher shipping cost. Of course I was encouraged to put more plants into the box, but I know they will be super, and many of them cost less than Bluestone, which has tripled its prices, and since there are no more shipping peanuts, there is also no free shipping.

I always like to drive to Milaegers in Racine, but I have moved further away, and gas is $4.00 plus dollars a gallon.

By the way, I have purchases oakleaf hydrangeas at Forest Farm, and Chris' at Plant and Gnome are just as big, if not bigger!

I've noticed that Bluestone is more often not offering plants in 3's the way they used to. Now it's becoming more single plants that are higher-priced. Always thought in the past that BS was a great place to get a new garden planted at a reasonable price.

speediebean, you're in. lol Thanks for the response.

On my way with my pic-i-nic basket full of goodies to share, thank you. =)

Cindy, I have never done any by-mail ordering for plants (or seeds, for that matter), but I've been seriously thinking about it. Thank you for the note about Bluestone, I'll be sure to remember to *not* order from there when the time comes. My budget thanks you, too. :)

Always check Garden Watchdog before you order so you can see the experience of others.

Oh, I'd forgotten about that, thank you Pirl! =)

Some companies that had good reputations years ago have fallen in stature, satisfaction and their attitude towards customers.

I haven't had many good experience with mail order when it comes to gardening. I once ordered some seeds, the seeds arrived damaged, I wrote to the company and they asked that I send the damaged seeds back in order to get my refund. For the price and trouble of mailing the damaged junk? I've banded mail order from my existence.

I've had more good experiences than bad, thankfully.

Well, when the time comes that I finally decide to take the plunge, I'll be sure to check the watchdog and I'll ask y'all in here, too.

Good idea!

I get most of my plants mail order. Frankly, I'm usually pleased.
In fact, the next couple weeks will be a frenzy of UPS/USPS trucks trundling up my driveway.
Opening the boxes is right up there with finding what Santa brought Christmas morning!

Just a note on the Baptisia. I treat mine horribly. It comes up reliably, and even sends a friend sometimes. Once it has bloomed and made its pods, it starts to get very bushy and wants to take over and steal the sunlight from my lilies. All in all, destroying the other blooming plants. The past 2 years I've been cutting it down once it wants to take over. Really cutting down and ignoring it, and it comes up again no matter what. Amsonia is more of a woody bush, and I try to cut that down also even with its sticky white sap. Not quite as pretty a Baptisia, but it has its benefits.

I find that baps really need to be spaced pretty far from other plants from the time of planting, and another step I take is to scratch out the seedlings in spring.

Received my Munchkin order the other day. The Corydalis 'Berry Exciting' is quite large and has flowers intact. The Phlox 'Manita' is on the small side but some of my named varieties aren't very full in the early spring either. I finally got my coveted Spigelia which is small but healthy. Now I just have to figure out where to plant the latter since I'm totally new to this plant.

I received my Raulston Arboretum plants yesterday (I am a contributor). I am only entitled to 2 but they always give me extras because I am so far away that I don't get a lot of the benefits of belonging. I received a hydrangea angustipetala that was listed on a U.K. site for 1,995 pounds. And it's not available. It's very rare and grown from seed.The hydrangea scandens was 30 pounds, and they boast about growing both from seed. I was also given a variegated St. John's Wort and a pasque flower. The plants often have a twist, like the japanese vareigated kerria I received last year. It was a sport. A lot of the plants are sports that they then replicate. I just love nature's little twists. 3 of the four are shade plants. Very cool.

I just realized that I have three sweet autumn clematis trained on the fence between me and my neighbors. I say these three plants and started pruning them. I realized that they were clematis. It is a sun partial shade spot. The ones in my old community were allowed to bunch up and look quite awful, but these have actually bee trained quite skillfully - vertically instead of randomly, so they don't bunch up - which is why I didn't recognize it.. I wouldn't have chosen it but it's nice to have. There is a sweet much older couple next door, and we chat over the clematis. They are clearly thrilled to have a neighbor who is a serious gardener and who is friendly.

It's funny. I moved here in December and I know most of my neighbors, but some people around me don't even know the names of people they have lived across the street from for 15 years. Excuse the phrase, but, what's up with that? I just said hello and introduced myself to everyone. The only person who won't speak to me is the wife of a very handsome Battalion Commander for the fire department. H's joined me on runs a couple of times, was kind enough to move a mountain of snow, and we always chat. But then, if my husband was the neighborhood stud muffin I would probably be wary of new females too!

Thanks for that link to the video. I've been roaming the backyard for the past couple days trying to figure out where to put the poor thing. The Corydalis and Phlox are easy to place but the Spigelia will take some thought (and moving of other plants).

Thank you Rouge for that video. I'd never heard of Spigelia before, so at first I was thinking it was a new hybrid combo of a Wigelia and Spirea, LOL!! < =D

I did some checking on it this afternoon and, while a native in IN, it's on the endangered list. I've never seen it before around here so maybe it's a good thing I purchased one.

Hi, I'm new to this thread.
I live in a California live oak forest. I have foxglove, rose campion, and brugmansias growing at the forest edge. You all have such great suggestions for shade plants but I have deer, gophers, and bunnies feasting nightly. Any suggestions for wildlife resistant plants? The shade natives here are mostly ferns.
This brings to mind the day my daughter brought my 2 year old grand-daughter out into my garden, she asked "is there anything poisonous out here?", I replyed if it's alive it's poisonous.

LOL Good thinking, Dee. Welcome to the thread!
I have the same problems here, and have just discovered a new repellant product that actually works, and that you don't have to remember to reapply every time it rains. It's called "Deer Scram", and I bought it at our local nursery. I used it on pansies a couple of weeks ago, and so far, nobody's touched them! I never used to be able to keep pansies more than a couple of days or so, and gave up until this one last-ditch effort.
Heucheras are supposed to be deer resistant, but I caught a deer nibbling one the other day; I'll have to sprinkle some of the repellant on it. It even kept the kitties from digging in a freshly seeded container that they had previously dug in!

To deer, and maybe other critters, it's supposed to smell like a dead deer and supposedly deer won't go where they sense a deer has been killed. Good luck.

This year our guy will be spraying with Deer Off. He has a different one he uses for winter. I'll report on how well it works (I hope and pray).

Ah, deer. We finished putting up the last bit of hopefully deer-deterring fencing this past week which now covers the 150 ft of back property line which borders on a wooded wetlands. It's 6 ft tall and yes, I know deer can manage an 8 ft fence but the only time I've seen them jump that high is when a crazy woman (me) is trying to chase them out of the garden. I think it will work to keep the casual browsers out. With plantings all along the back of the property, it's just too much to use deer-repelling products. I wish dead racoons would deter the live ones but it doesn't work that way with them.

LOL Nope, they're a whole different story. In the past couple years, I have put river rocks (and larger!) in my beds and containers to keep the squirrels (and cats) from digging in them, but the racoons like to take out the rocks as they look under them for tasty tidbits. Grrrr...

My neighbor has cats that she allows to roam free. I told her how tired I am of picking up after them but she still lets them out so I did the kind thing - I threw all seven mounds back on her property. Between the deer and the cats I'm quite peeved but this is a problem she is capable of doing something about, but she won't.

Pirl, I've got a neighbor (or 2? or 3?), who do the same thing. I have found a couple o' few different cats wandering and nosing around in my beds out front, and have found their "leavings" on more than several occasions and can't for the life of me figure out HOW to deter them. Grrrr. I have no idea whom these cats belong to, or else I'd go have a friendly chat with them, so I'm left with just trying to figure out what to put out there that they don't like. We do sell "Deer Scram" at work, and while I don't have deer problems, I may just give it a try for the cats. This is an ongoing "yarden maintenance" issue for me. Any other suggestions I can try? Maybe some plants that they don't like? I'd GLADLY install new plants for this purpose! =)

Cindy, I'm going to do the same thing with deer fencing around the perimeter of my woods. I'm not going to attempt to fence the whole yard, because I don't think it's practical. But I figure if I can at least interrupt the deer highways, maybe they'll learn a different route.

I was out of town last weekend; I very much missed my yard survey.
Things change so quickly during the spring, I hate to miss anything.
But I did catch a picture of another woodland peony blooming at the edge of the woods by my driveway. This is paeonia rockii.