Random Shade Garden Photos

Lily of the Valley

Shade garden - Pulmonaria, lamium, and bleeding heart in bloom

Shade garden - tiarella and forget-me-nots in bloom

Another area of the shade garden - muscari and bleeding hearts in bloom

When we moved to our house four years ago, I lamented the fact that it was a heavily wooded lot and I wouldn't have as much room for sun-loving perennials as I did at our previous house.  But I'm starting to change my tune.  Here are some random shots of my shade garden from my iPhone, so the quality is not the best.  Most of these plantings were new last year so it's fun to see that most survived the winter and are thriving.  I can't wait to see it in three years when everything has filled out a little more! 

The lily of the valley was transplanted from another area in our yard where it was growing for three years but never bloomed.  How fun to finally see flowers!  I'm not sure why it bloomed in this area and not the other, except that this area is much more shaded than where it was previously planted, so that could be part of it.

The debris in all of the photos is a result of a hailstorm here on Saturday.  Out of nowhere it started hailing golf-ball sized hail!  My rhubarb took a beating, as did some of the hostas that have leafed out, but otherwise, the flowers were pretty much left undisturbed.

On the vegetable garden front, this week we've planted broccoli, beans, carrots, beets, cucumbers, and tomatoes (added to our already planted potatoes, onions, and peas) at our community garden.  Squash will go in this weekend.  I haven't planted ANYTHING in my little salad garden at our house - not even salad greens which could have gone in several weeks ago.  Maybe the weather will cooperate this weekend so I can get that taken care of and checked off of the infamous "list" that all of us gardeners have... the list that is never ending.  But that's a good thing!

Pretty Much Picasso Petunia, take two

Last year I really wanted to plant some of these petunias in hanging baskets on the lake side of the house where they would get a lot of sun, but they were nowhere to be found around here.  This year, I did get my hands on some, which are potted in two lovely hanging baskets just waiting for summer to arrive.  Currently, they're sitting on the hearth of the fireplace where they won't freeze at night!

I was excited to finally find these, but I was also surprised at how small the flowers were.  This picture is from the Proven Winners website and unless you really look closely at how the flowers compare to the leaves, you would assume that they're larger than they truly are.  Or at least I did.  But that didn't stop me from buying them.

Now we just have to wait for the temps to catch up with the calendar here in northern MN!

Hyacinths

Hyacinth (hyacinths?) are a new flower in my garden this spring!  I'm so glad that I planted more spring bulbs last fall.  I have these hyacinth blooming right now as well as graph hyacinth, scilla, a plethora of daffodils, and a few tulips.  Bulbs that haven't bloomed for me this spring yet are the allium and snowdrops that I also planted last fall.  If the snowdrops haven't bloomed yet, and it's late May, does that mean they won't?  Does anyone have experience with these, especially in zone 3? 

Potatoes!

Today, the kids helped me plant 12 pounds of seed potatoes - four pounds each of red norlands, white kennebecs, and norkotah russets.  Last week we planted onions (candy variety from plants) and peas (sugar ann snap peas). 


It's still really cold here, cooler than average, so while I usually plant tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and the rest on Memorial Day weekend, I'm not sure it's a good idea to go ahead and do that quite yet.  Maybe beans, carrots, and dill can go in this weekend, but I think I'll wait another weekend to plant my transplants and cucumbers & squash.

Any other zone 3 readers out there who have been brave enough to plant more than potatoes and peas?

More Spring Blooms

Narcissus - Not sure of the variety

Fern Leaf Bleeding heart

Primrose - This one has never bloomed for me, so it's a treat to see!

Dwarf Bearded Iris

Forget Me Nots

Lamium

Here are some of the beauties in bloom in the gardens today.  The tulips are just starting to open up, and the yellow daffodils are putting on a beautiful show!

Turf to Brag About

Look at this beautiful lawn!  Ok, it's not winning any "turf awards" to be sure, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  At one time, before I started gardening and thinking more about my family's impact on the environment, I might have been embarrassed that our yard isn't lush and green and free from weeds.  But if my lawn did meet that aesthetic standard, then I wouldn't have the opportunity to see these white little wildflowers that I believe are some kind of anemone.  There's also a fun little patch of moss in the bottom right corner of the photograph, and maybe some wild strawberry as well.

What fun surprises nature has in store for us if we let her do her thing!

Prairie Restorations Field Trip

On Saturday, we took a long road trip to the Prairie Restorations headquarters in Princeton, MN, with the purpose of purchasing some swamp milkweed to add to our butterfly garden.  Butterflies, particularly monarchs, lay their eggs on swamp milkweed as the caterpillars find the plant quite tasty.    Not only did we find some milkweed at Prairie Restorations, we also went home with a few other treats!

Pink Rue Anemone (Enemion biternatum)

Dwarf Trout Lily (Erythronium Propullans)

Bishop's Cap or Two-leaf Miterwort (Mitella Diphylla)

I'm hoping these plants thrive in our woodland shade garden.  When we moved into our house four years ago, I lamented the fact that I couldn't grow a large number of my favorite sun loving plants because of our heavily shaded lot.  I have one very small sunny garden that I've had to load up with lilies and the like, and the rest of the gardens are made up of shade loving plants. Four years later, and my favorite spot in the yard is the shade garden out by the road.  Who would have thought I could learn to love the shade.