Indeed the ligularia should solve the problem. Good ideas!
Good shade plant combinations
storm,
I lost every variegated Jacobs Ladder I planted too, and I replanted 3 times, until I tried the Stairway to Heaven.
It sounds like you planted many wonderful plants this year. Of all the Siberian Iris I've seen the white is the most elegant. I also find that true of the white non native bleeding heart. Neither appear to be as aggressive as the pink bleeding heart or the purple iris, I tend to ruthlessly cull those two.
I must be the only one who can't grow shooting stars, I've tried those in 3 different spots and lost them all.
Nice combinations Weerobin.
ge, Nice start on your gardens. It is always fun to see new gardens develop.
This is an interesting early season combination, I like the way the red tulip brings out the red from the underside of the Heuchera Caramel and the green and white tulip echoes the white in the foamflower with the blue hosta as a neutral bridge color.
Thanks sempervivens.
I am planting tulips today and your redones near the Huchera are a great Idea.
I also have lilies to go in too.Music Art from B&D Lilies will bloom near my Caramel in July.
Going to be a big day for digging holes in this darnd clay and stone soil.
GE, Your gardens are coming along beautifully. Your shade garden reminds me a lot of mine. I started mine 3 years ago. The beds were actually dense thickets of overgrown shrubs and wild plants with vines that reached 80' into the trees. Clearing it took 6 months. Your westgarden is very pretty. I too have one of those pipe eyesores. My water meter is right in front of the garage in my shrub bed. I'm waiting for a Hydrangea and a daphne to grow enough to cover it.
Semipervens, your combos are gorgeous. This is a great thread. Lots of good ideas. My bulbs have just arrived. There are already 100's planted in my shade beds, but the voles do their best to decimate them, so I will be busy replenishing them. Don't feel bad about the shooting star. I'm the only person who couldn't get Chameleon plant to grow.
storrmy! Wow you must be young and strong.
My shade garden was mulch over Contractors 3 mil. plastic sheets.
It took three weeks to clear it all out but I have to work slow.
Your garden took a lot of determination.
I also like this forum and have added it to my favs.
I started a thread on Northeast Garden forum " container plant combos" Season is over so it has dissapeared.
Doss, I am amazed at the lilies in my shade beds. Some of them stand up prefectly straight. Others lean for the sun. Sometimes in a group of one variety all planted together in one spot, 3 are tall and straight and 3 lean. I stake the serious leaners and let the others gracefully bend. This past summer a tornado ripped a lot down and left others partially attached to the ground. I staked all of those barely surviving and they did fine. Sometimes the ones in really windy spots stand straight and those in sheltered areas lean.
Doss, your beds are always neat and photo ready. How long did it take you to get them that way?
I've been too busy planting and working to have any photo time, but here are some shots from mid summer. I've added numerous plantings since then, but many are covered in leaves now.This bed is 250' long by 25 to 30' deep. I hate the black mulch. DSO did that. Next year, I'm going to use leaf mulch. At the far end of the bed, it connects to another bed that runs along the road. That bed is 150' long by 20' deep. The connecting corner is 45' deep and has a path down the middle.
This photo is one section of the big bed. Most of the plants are babies.
Looking down toward the connecting road side bed.
The end which adjoins my neighbors. My beds are full of young shrubs encased in cages against critters digging. There are over 150 Hosta planted inside of below ground hardware cloth pots against vole damage. The rhodos, laurels, azalea, daphnes and brunnera are also planted in these wire pots. I plan to move all of the above ground cages to surround the 30 or so Hydrangeas and stuff leaves in them to protect next year's buds from a late freeze.
This is what a gorgeous 5' tall Orange Flame Deciduous Azalea ends up looking like if I don't use a hardware pot. I had 6 of these.
My lone Carex Island Brocade.
Some Heuchera plantings. I think that I've planted over 3oo Heuchera, Heucherella and Tiarella in these beds and 3 other beds.
I've been waiting for these to grow to see how the colors would look together. It's a row of 5 St. John's Wort Albury purple with Heuchera Pistaches. The plants in front are Stachy's. There are various bulbs underplanted around the St. John's Wort.
These gardens are a massive undertaking which I think won't be full for at least another 2 to 3 years.
Ge, I'm 53 and somewhat crazy, but yes, determined!!!!!
You go kiddo.
DG has banned co-ops. Check the co-op forum now to get in on the last ones.
Were they having too many problems with them??
Apparently so Jen, there are two threads running now about them.
thanks
Oooh, I love shade plants! Although the sun is so strong even in coastal CA, that many plants labeled 'full sun' are living happily for me in almost full shade. Following are some of my favorite combinations and a couple of my favorite plants for true shady spots.
This is a fragrant dwarf rhododendron. It's scraggly and unattractive, but when in bloom, it is not only spectacular, they smell just like Easter lilies - honey-sweet.
Our backyard is almost entirely shaded by a huge silver maple and a slowly dying walnut. We ringed both trees with concrete block walls, threw in some compost, and are seeing what can survive under these challenging conditions. Here under the walnut, spring nasturtiums make a lush look. The helichrysum succumbed to a cold winter, and the callas have struggled, either from the walnut's allelopathy or just the fact it sucks up moisture from the soil.
The Tropicanna canna is doing very well, but the cytisus (broom) has had a hard time this summer with our drought.
There is no foliage plant more colorful than the CA fuchsia "Variegata". Here it is with yellow Oxalis siliquosa 'Copper Sunset', a pink flowering hellebore, a yellow grassy-leafed plant I can't remember the name of, and a microlepia fern.
The standard white calla - this is a large one, possibly 'Hercules'. The palm was one of those tiny houseplant things I threw in the garden to see if it would grow - and it did, so large I eventually had to take it out! In the background is white bacopa and yellow-leaved variegated plectranthus.
I have loved clivia ever since I first encountered them in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The variegated rhamnus barely manages to shade it enough - in the summer our occasional heat spells sometimes burn the leaves. I have both orange and red varieties, but the orange flowers dependably; the red much less so.
Here an "Endless Summer" hydrangea barely manages to keep atop that big white calla on the left and that houseplant-palm-gone-wild on the right. A 'Jack Frost' brunnera has really impressed me with its performance - grows fast, flowers often, stays alive during our cold wet winters.
Foliage, and especially variegated foliage, is my greatest love. Here are six plants fighting it out (and hiding completely the vinca minor underneath, which refuses to die). From L-R: Calla leaves, the sunburst of variegated alstroemeria, white bacopa, yellow variegated plectranthus ciliatis, 'Jack Frost' brunnera, unknown palm.
In that same bed but further down the hill, some Oxalis siliquosa 'Copper Sunset' (which unfortunately died this summer during our drought) competed against the white bacopa - you can just see a single tiny white flower - and yellow plectranthus ciliatus.
For some reason hellebores don't seem very popular around here - at least, I seldom see them in my neighborhood. I have one bed that lives completely on runoff from above, it is never directly watered. But the hellebore and variegated aucuba have thrived in this location.
Here's another hellebore, this one standing tall over a red grevillea (which died a few months later) and the spikey leaves of a bearded iris which I have in every single garden bed, having been gifted with over 200 rhizomes by my gardener. The hellebore hides a jade plant which is between the hellebore and the giant white calla. On the other side of the calla is a variegated aucuba 'Gold Dust'.
This is one of the prettiest and most delicate heucheras I've ever seen - 'Snow Angel'.
I love these New Guinea impatiens, but so far I've been unable to keep them alive through our cold wet winters. I keep trying, however!
As our property slopes downwards from front to back, we have good drainage even with a base of hideous adobe clay - I had the first 8" dug out and replaced with top quality compost. But the soil is gradually getting tired and the clay is creeping upwards, I've noticed. Here, the Oxalis siliquosa 'Copper Sunset' inches down to meet my ubiquitous purple bearded iris and the variegated aucuba 'Gold Dust'. These iris have no scent, but they are prolific growers and rebloom two or three times a year! I love the dark purple color.
I have very little blue in my cottage garden, and deciduous plants struggle against the evergreen plants which try to smother them. This 'Johnson's Blue' geranium came back twice, but finally gave up the ghost.
Lamium maculatum 'Anne Greenaway' is so pretty, but it just won't survive our bone-dry summers.
I really liked this Lysimachia congestiflora groundcover, but it didn't survive a really cold winter three years ago. I've never found it again, either.
This bed is on the north side of our house, almost completely shaded save for 1 hr of morning sun. I have reworked this bed over the last two years, as the Japanese maple died (I've replaced it with the same variety) and the palm, as mentioned above, started to get too large for its location. This is an often-used walkway, so I had the palm taken out. The beautiful heuchera 'Amber Waves' died dring the cold winter and was replaced by the 'Jack Frost' brunnera. The spikey bearded iris leaves make a good contrast against the rounded hydrangea leaves.
Here Plectranthus argentatus contrasts with Oxalis siliquosa 'Copper Sunset'. The latter has a rosy tinge in winter, but in the summer it's more chartreuse and yellow.
Either all the descriptions lie, or Park Seed sent me something other than 'Glowing Embers' hydrangea. It's a lovely, vigorous plant, but certainly not red! Here it contrasts with a silvery helichrysum and my prized 'Full Moon Aureum' Japanese maple. The heavy shade comes from two huge yellow cestrums on either side of this trio, along with a neighbor's plum tree.
Here is another plectranthus ciliatus, this time 'Zulu Wonder'. It is a truly beautiful plant grown for its spectacular lavender-colored flower spikes. Alas, it too succumbed to a summer drought, staggering under a massive whitefly attack. It was a lovely contrast to the variegated scented pelargonium while it lasted, however.
And here is the true CA state flower....forget the orange CA poppy, it is Oxalis pes-caprae that truly rules! Each and every spring, in sun or shade, good soil or bad, carefully tended garden or neglected vacant lot, this plant covers every inch it can grab. But at least, with its bright green clover-like leaves and tall, nodding spikes of yellow flowers, it's a good-looking weed. It takes an exhausting and vigorous campaign of yearly hand-weeding to keep it under control, at least in my garden.
Gorgeous, jkom