I have a small California suburban back yard. Here is what we did. Atrium/teahouse off the master bath outside and inside filled with hosta where a hot tub once was. Then our deck overhead outside the family room kitchen at the other end of the yard. Both provide the necessary shade for my hostas here in the Land of Fruits and Nuts.

-Babka

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That's gorgeous, Babka.

Spectacular! I often wondered what the outside of your atrium looked like! I used to live in Northern California and remember that it never rained in the summer. How do you water all those hostas in the atrium?

Leafwatcher, here's a video that shows use of shade shelters.

Gesila

Here is a link that might be useful: Shade Shelters

Your tea house and garden are so beautiful and yummy! I also love the photos you have posted earlier this year of the door to the house off the deck with hosta all around. Ahhh....
:-)
Deb

ps: hehe "Land of Fruits and Nuts"

What an oasis, Babka. What an inspiration that the rest of your gardens are just as well-tended as your hosta collection.

Babka,I love Japanese style gardens! Yours is beautiful! No way could I ever do that here in the woods. I have a Japanese lantern out at the end of my garden, and some Japanese maples,but that's the extent of it. Phil

Babka, yours is so nice it almost scares me to do anything ! I mean it is perfection ....

Gesila I tried to watch your link, but I am sort of in the anti facebook crowd and therefore have no way of watching it.. ;)

hhahahaha, its not always easy being stubborn.

I was thinking a much more rough open aired structure, It sure would be nice to be able to use when its raining however...

Thanks for all the kind comments!

Gesila- Yes, no rain here in Summer. We don't get really hot here and it is always cools off in the evening. I only need to thoroughly soak the pots in the atrium maybe every 4-5 days. I have one of those little plastic coil type hoses that is attached to a spigot. It reaches about 12' when fully stretched so I can hand water and "inspect" each of my babies when I water them.

-Babka

Darn Leafwatcher, I logged out of Facebook and was able to see the link. Seems that there's something on my computer that knows I have a FB account. I asked the poster of the video to share a still picture of his shade structures. I'll post a copy here if he does.

Gesila.

I recently planned to build a structure with beams on top and supported by 4x4s to protect Medium to Large hostas against direct sun from 11 am to 2:00 pm, but that seemed to be a lot of work and not very effective. I put up a vertical target to see where its shade would move over time - not where I wanted. The wood work above the hostas would shade the environment, but not always the hostas. I reasoned that a screen 8 to 10 ft high above the hostas would need to be very wide to shield the hostas from the sun.

As also done last year, I use again individual near vertical burlap screens, 3ft wide x 3ft tall, oriented to protect against sun from the south. My screens are placed right there where they are needed.
Bernd

I live in Mid, Wisconsin. Weather this year hasn't been very good, but we are making the best of it. We put this shade structure up last yeaar and moved the rock border out and added some more hosta to it. I just got done adding some lattice to the back side for more shade. Photo's don't do it justice.

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Just beautiful. WW

Here you go:

Babka is so Zen. It relaxes as well as invigorates the creative gardener. I love it.

Where you need shade, where the light is coming from, what it takes to block it without creating a bigger problem. Yeah, that is all part of it.

I like the lathed pergola over the deck that Babka has. You do not always need a solid overhead. Especially if you have sufficient rain that might keep you from watering plants every day.....don't block the rainfall and create an unnecessary burden of watering plants. But if there is heat, then you run the boards of the pergola so they create the most shade, but allow the rain to fall through.

I presently use several market umbrellas like lollipop trees to shade clusters of hosta. When it is windy, or when it rains, I lower the umbrellas to allow the plants access to the rain. I also lined up pots of heat tolerant shrubs or potted trees so the late afternoon sun is screened from my Back40 hosta garden.
Since this is fairly messy, weeds grow in between pots, I'm waiting for the remodel job to finish and then we'll put in a long slim pergola from the Teahouse door across to the tool shed (which was my chicken coop until the neighbor ratted on me).
I will have enough of the 2x2s up top to give filtered light to the area most exposed to the western summer sun. It will also allow me to put in a gate....no fence, just the gate which I realized should be a "stargate" to a different world. And that's where I'll locate H. 'Stargate' as well.

Also I'd suggest that you work the design for a shade shelter into your house design, so it looks integral with it. That's a feature of Japanese design that makes it so satisfying to view as well as to live with. Like Babka's setup, which I really admire.

My shade shelter is still in progress, and it is about 3 4x4s which are fairly tall, so I can place 90% shade cloth over the top like a tent, and attach each end to the 7' tall privacy fences....that section of the garden is only 25 foot wide, so it is possible to create a removeable canopy. Up high enough to water beneath, or permeable enough to let rain fall on the hosta below. Bungee which will give when the wind tugs it, and an opening in the middle to let leaves fall off somehow...that will remain to be seen. I keep waiting for all the debris to fall, and I will install the shade then. Presumably.

Build a wood structure that you like to look at. Then, if you need more shade, you can get sun shade cloth (polypropolene) in varying densities, like 90% shade, 70% shade, 30% shade, and colors. We have 50% shade cloth over our atrium, which keeps the neighbor's tree leaves out, but lets air an rain flow thru. In our case we put a plastic tarp over the top of it after Thanksgiving to keep all my pots dry. It isn't really very expensive, and they will cut it to custom size and put in grommets so you just tie them to your structure. Easy, peasy. The stuff lasts for years and isn't very expensive. Burlap wouldn't last long.

-Babka

Here is a link that might be useful: Google search for shade cloth

I don't have a Facebook account, but clicked on Gesila's link and went right to the video.

Don B.

hmmm, let me see, I do run my anti virus on a high level, with all kinds of anti script options turned on ;)

That was it ! I had the security to high to allow it.. What a nice setup, that is closer to what I was thinking, I am really going to think on it for awhile....

This post was edited by leafwatcher on Sat, Jun 1, 13 at 0:41

Babka,
Thanks for your reference to the shade cloth stores! They seem to provide cloth with sewn borders and grommets at a reasonable price. Cloths then can be tied to simpler wooden structures as when the whole shade structure is made out of wood. It is still important to chart out where exactly the shade cloth has to hang to shade the hostas, not exactly above but under an angle considering where the sun is travelling over several hours.
Thanks for showing your back yard!
Bernd