My cabin garden is still a work in progress and, like yours, has to go several weeks without any TLC. I have almost pure sand on the upper part of the property and moist to soggy soil down in the flat part by the lake. I have stuck with mostly MN natives except for some of the evergreens. Most things are part sun to sun. Things that are doing well even this year:

Dry, sand:
Yarrow
Prairie Smoke
Fireweed
New Jersey Tea
Baptisia
Coreopsis
Blanket Flower
Butterfly Weed
Cup Plant
Switchgrass
Chokeberry
Asters
Columbines
Daylilies

Moist/Wet Area
Native Lobelias
White turtlehead
Iris
Cup Plant
Elderberry
Viburnum
Swamp Rose
Labrador Tea

Zone 3 Cabin. Mostly clay and dry soil, but have been slowly amending over the years. In my cabin gardens I grow almost everything I have at home, except for real moisture loving plants. Besides plants mentioned above, plants include -

Bee Balm
Maltese Cross
Primrose
Verbascums
Asiatic lilies, blackberry lily, all lilies
Moonbeam Coreopsis
Pink Coreopsis
Lambsear
All kinds of Rubeckias (7 types so far)
Blue Bedder Salvia
Unknown Salvias
Lady Slipper
Ladybells
Hostas
Rose Campion
Liatris

I have both sun, shade and dappled shade. I am lucky enough that a couple years ago we setup a pump system we drop in the lake and have sprinklers on timers running every third day in mid summer (adjust accordinly due to weather conditions).

Planting grown plants through Sept from your home garden should do well.

I don't have a cabin of my own, but have friends that do. I guess that one thing to think about would be wild life...I know that in some places the deer just destroy the garden, if wild life are an issue where your parents cabin is, you may want to look at some 'deer resistant' plants?

We have a lake cabin, but it's only 10 minutes away, so watering isn't a problem for me.

I'd definitely recommend spraying some of your plants with Plantskydd or something like that to keep the rabbits and deer away. This stuff is completely natural and won't harm the plants, and it will generally keep the deer away from the plant, but not the whole yard (deer are cool to have around, just not foraging in the flower garden).

Check the weather frequently by looking up precipitation records for the area, and if it's been hot/dry, make sure you water the plants a bit extra. I even do a few annuals out at our cabin.. some geraniums and petunias.. and they get pretty dry between waterings, but they've done quite well.

One thing you can do that your plants will forever thank you for is to water them with lake water. All the beaver poop and other various things in the water works wonders on plants.

Have you thought of native woodland plants like trilium, jack-in-the-pulpit, virginia bluebells, creeping wintergreen, bunchberry. etc? They look great in my suburban garden intersperced with some evergreens, and other perennials like hosta and bleeding heart and columbine. Pondy

Thanks everyone for the responses! I was up over the weekend and decided I really should wait until spring. It will give me lots more time to plan and get the area ready for planting. The area I'm looking at appears to be full sun.

pondwelr - your ideas of trilium, jack-in-the-pulpit, etc are all very interesting. At home I don't have shade so unless I could find a really cheap (free????) source for shade plants I'd have to pass right now. It would be fun at some point to grow some stuff up there that I don't have the necessary shade to grow down here. I suppose I do have hosta, bleeding heart, and columbine that could be moved.... Hmmmm.

snowguy - no way in you know what will you find me carrying water all the way up from the lake! It sounds like a great idea until you see the steep hill and slippery path to climb.. Way too much work when there is a garden hose and all the not-safe-for-human-consumption iron-smelling well water that they can drink. At least while I'm up there..

Again, thanks for all the suggestions!

TwoHuskies - for a couple hundred $ (seems like a lot) but you can put a pump system in. We pump out of the lake up a 150 ft hill and next year will pump to the road side and up a hill. The pump cycles off and on from a water timer. This fall if I think of it, I will take a pic of the system (the part in the water and then the pump itself. The gardens do love the lake water.

Plan your gardens and your wish list this winter and maybe at the spring swap next year you can pick up some shade lovin plants!!

Sandy

twohuskies, are you the woman who comes to the Plymouth Swap with the big red trailer and those beautiful dogs?

I saw your username and had to ask, I love seeing those dogs every time so I hope if it is you, you'll be there tonight. And if it's not you, come anyway for some fun swapping! I'd love to meet your dogs too if they're different ones.

rambam - nope, I've never been to the Plymouth swap.. Won't have time to make it tonight either :(

Of course you are welcome to meet my dogs anytime. I love seeing other people's gardens and welcome those that want to see mine though it's mostly just roses.

Here is a pic of my dogs taken last winter. This is the wrong place to say this but I can wait for some snow!!!!!

Cute pups. What breed is the middle one?

Thanks Kelly! Angel is a German Shepherd Husky mix.