need help, shade in a.m., blazing sun in p.m.

I want to enlarge a bed in the front of my home. In the back I have cottage/English garden look but in the front I want it to be more organized with a layered look. Beginning at the wall to the right of the front door I want a large circle (10-12' diameter) then curving in (5') and out again froming a smaller circle (7' in diameter) on the far right.

The challenge is that the bed faces SW and will be shaded in the morning by the house and a tree and blazing sun the rest of the day. I live in S. Texas near the coast.

I already have some Indian Hawthorns against the wall that I would like to keep because there are some to the left of the front door. The bed needs to have some evergreen bones and I'd like to have something blooming as much as possible. I think there needs to be an accent plant in the middle of the big circle. Is all this an impossible task?

This message was edited Jul 9, 2006 10:22 PM

This is a view of more of my home. To the left is the garage with a shape much like the right.

This is not impossible, and can actually be beneficial. By getting shade in the am, any morning irrigation will have time to soak in before the sun evaporates the moisture. Most of the plants in my front yard face southwest. So I get am shade, then baking hot dry sun from 11am to sundown. As long as you get say 7 hours of Texas sun, I'd say your pretty safe in planting just about any "full sun'" plants. During the winter, you might get only 4 hours of sun (as I do in some spots), so tropicals such as palms might be risky.

The plants that have done best under these conditions where I live (z8a) include the following:

Roses, lavender, dianthus, creeping phlox, dwarf crepe myrtles, salvia, liriope, plumbago, Mexican/Texas bush sage, and Indian Hawthorne.

I'll take a closer look at your pictures and think about some plants for zone 9a.

Beautiful house. I can almost hear the sounds of the Gulf looking at your pictures. I am no garden designer, but a sweet olive tree/bush between the arching window and the wall might work well as a background evergreen with long seasonal blooms. Osmanthus are easily trimmed, so it can be contained to not crowd the window, roof, or any plants on top of the wall. Any visitors to the front door will be greeted by the wonderful fragrance of the sweet olive tree. The tree thrives in partial sun and up to zone 10b.

I often refer to the Texas Superstar web page when starting a project. The following is a list of plants from that page for your zone and partial sun (I did not include ruellia, because once you have it, you always will---and possibly neighbors).

Vitex tree---can get really big, but can't think of a nicer tree for Texas
Variegated Tapioca---might work really well framing the window if you prefer it to the sweet olive (might be risky if you ever get close to freezing)
Plumbago---would thrive in your conditions, you mentioned a tidy, layered look (this one can sprawl)
Burgundy sun and plum parfait coleus--would definitely work with the organized look you're going for.
Duranta
Texas gold columbine

Best wishes on your project. Please post any "after pictures"

This message was edited Jul 10, 2006 9:32 AM

I didn't realize that you already know all about duranta (was just looking at PlantFiles comments).

Butterfly bush might be a good option. here is a pic of my in the front. It is right be the road and gets sun until after 6pm. It takes LOTS of heat and puts out lovely flowers that attact butterflies.

Do forget about oleander - they would love a spot like that!!

I will chip in and say that there are some full sun caladiums that I planted this year that are gorgeous. One of them being Florida Sweetheart, and in my garden, this gets full blazing sun, no shade whatsoever. Another full sun caladium, is Red Flash.

I've just posted some pics of my garden in Houston, zone 9a that have similar light conditions to yours. (See them under Texas Garden forum, Yard Of The Month thread). I've planted Knockout roses, Nearly Wild roses, day lilies, pentas, loropetalum, oleander, salvias, butterfly bush, copper plants, agapanthus, iris, vitex and an espalliered Little Gem Magnolia. The magnolia and loropetalum are excellent evergreen plants with contrasting foliage color and texture. I've also used some of the new variegated sweet potato vine as a ground cover and it's doing almost too well. I've found that most plants that say "full sun" don't really mean full Texas sun. The Knockout roses will bloom with as little as 4 hours of sun, but can handle our heat and humidity and bloom profusely with more sun. Mine are shaded by trees until about 11:00, but full sun from then on. Hope this helps.

I re-read your post and saw that you are looking for something to give it "bones." Caladiums will definitely be just more of an accent. I think a sago palm would be very pretty there in your bed.

Thanks to all of you, I'm getting so excited about the ideas. There are some suggestions of things I've already thought of like sago palm, agapantha, duranta, oleander but you've given me lots more suggestions. It's going to be hard for me to make a decision because I'm so used to cottage gardening where you can use a large variety of things scattered around. It's perfect for people like me who have a hard time making decisions. This bed won't be planted until next spring, so I'm going to look up the plants that I'm not familiar with and make a list of possibilities. I already have a scale drawing where I can pencil things in until it looks right. Then the real challenge will be to stick with it and not put in something just because it looks good at the nursery or that my neighbor friend gives me! In other words, I don't want to keep spending money on it and not have a bed that has curb appeal all year long.

Ya' know, barbur, my "moon garden" gets morning shade and real hot, blazing sun the rest of the day. Its also farthest from the hose, so its a bed that has needed to be pretty tough. Have you thought about a theme garden like that? As far as trees out there, I've got 2 mountain laurels, 2 white crepe myrtles, and 2 red crepe myrtles. The plants are Texas sages, russian sages, white salvia greggii, artemesias (powis castle, dusty miller), white,and purple & white, trailing lantana, gray santolina, blackfoot daisy. Um, I think that's most of them.

I've begun reading about your suggestions. I'm definitely going to have a sweet olive, because of its scent and its evergreen. A neighbor has society garlic and I love the look when its blooming and when its not (spikey). Have yall used it in a SW bed? Amaranthus has the same look but larger, whould that be a better choice? I'm also thinking of tucking in some amaryllis or iris to get those early blooms that say, "Winter is over, spring is here!"

mmmm, I wonder how many times I'l change my mind before spring gets here. I get so excited when I'm going to get something new, like furniture, flooring or paint color. Then before its over I think it would have been better for someone to tell me, "This is what you're getting, here it is!"

ms_merae, I'm going to leave some pockets where I can plant "some" annuals etc. caladiums or coleuses could go there.

Thanks dogmansis, Even though I might not do a moon garden I know the value of white blooms and foliage making a statement from a distance. I have a bed a distance from my house and the white blooms really stand out and look so fresh.

I have a strip like this. It is even hotter, concrete drive in front of a narrow strip of about 21/2 feet, a light colored wooden garage wall behind it. Oh, the soil is strangely porous so I've haulded buckets of wet red clay dug here and there in other areas and cut it in like pie crust dough.

I've had lots of failures. Here's what made it:

Some really sturdy roses are living there, but not thriving. They are pretty in the late spring but summer they suffer. I've moved all out but two that get more shade.

Right now, I have perriwinkles, salvia greiggii, lantana, passionvine and hyacinth bean vine on a make shift trellis, something whose orange flower looks like a small trumpet but it is more shrub like....sorry, I don't know the name. I have an althea trying to take hold and coneflower that came back from last year but is not doing well.

I can't wait to see what you decide to do, it's a lovely bed.
cynthia

crowellli, I've been studying your gorgeous photos, is the espalliered Little Gem Magnolia in the photos? The loropetalum will get quite a bit taller than it is now, right?

Several of you suggested salvia, I'll probably use it to fill in spaces while the other plants are small, it is reseeding all over the place and I just let it grow and bloom till there is not room for it then I pull it out.

loveshercowdog, is the plant with the small trumpet blooms a cape honeysuckle?

barbur - some nice natives specifically for your area of TX (TX zone 10):
SHRUBS: Malpighia glabra or Manzanita evergr, sh or fs, att. birds, pk fls

Leucophyllum frutescens or Cenizo cultivars "Convent" , "Compacta" evergr, prpl fls on silver foliage, f sun

Schaefferia cuneifolia or Desert Yaupon (not related to the Yaupon holly) evergr, fsun, red berries

Erythrina herbacea Coralbean, 6', f sun, fls are 8-12" spikes spr-frost, hummer


PERENNIALS: Delphinium carolinianum, Blue Larkspur fsun, to 3 ft., btfly, hummer
Echeandia chandleri Lila De Los LLannos to 3 ft., f sun, soft or-y fls may-nov, evergr
Eupatorium coelestinum, Blue Mistflower fsun/pt shade, spreads- but not invasive, blooms apr-dec - oooh the btfls!!!
Hibiscus martianus Heartleaf Hibiscus to 3 ft., f sun, everblooming if no frost, hummer?
Lantana horrida, Texas Lantana to 3 ft. spreading, spring to frost blooms, btfly
Manfreda variegata, Manfreda from amaryllis family, leaves soft but look agaves, splotched w/prpl also M maculosa
Marshallia caespitosa, Barbaras Buttons to 18", well-behaved, fragrant wh bl apr-june, btfly
Penstemon cobaea Wild Foxglove, to 18" wh-prpl fls apr-may fsun, let go to seed for perpetual plants, hummers
Tephrosia lindheimeri Hoary Pea to 9" trailing 3-6', f sun, ht pk fls apr-oct like sweetpea endemic to TX - can order from Yucca Do Nursery in Waller

BTW Arlington/Dallas is in TX zone 3b/4 TX zones based on soil, summer/winter temps, and rainfall. These can make a big difference on how big your plant gets or if it will survive at all.
Personally, a garden just doesn't have that "joie de vivre" without butterflies, hummers, and songbirds.

The Little Gem Magnolia is in this photo to the right of the fountain. It's only been in the ground a few weeks, so it looks a little scrappy right now due to dropping leaves at planting time. I've done this with another Little Gem in the past and it worked out really well.

As to the loropetalum, it won't get much tallker than it is now. I've started pruning it a bit so that it will be more dense. There are more of them behind the white plumbago, but the plumbago has sort of overpowered them. They'll eventually make a fairly dense hedge at the back of the bed with the lighter colored plumbago and pentas showing up really well against the dark plum colored leaves of the loropetalum (at least that's my plan, we'll have to see if the plants cooperate or have something else in mind).