Shade Garden: north side of the house.

9 years ago

The house faces almost directly east - west, so this side of the house gets very little sun, especially with the elm and the cedar in the way.

Plantings:

Irises, strawberries (the alliums and spider lilies are hard to see in this pic), with alyssum seedlings planted on the north side of the irises. A few daffodil bulbs survived in that bed, but this is their first year and they didn't flower.

Plus, more strawberries and a 'few' alyssum seedlings in the beds by the hose reel. There are a dozen or more asparagus seedlings in those two beds, but they are almost impossible to see in this pic. They're about six inches tall and the size of a pencil lead.

The material in the path? An accidental/on purpose 50/50 mix of gravel and builder's sand. The edging is that cheap, plastic stuff from Walmart. It comes in 40' rolls at about $15 a roll. If you fiddle with it a bit and use a couple of stakes here, it'll more or less keep a straight line.

The cedar and the Chinese elm? Once I win the lottery, they're outta there. ;)

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Comments (3)

OklaMoni
9 years ago
Not sure, if that is enough sun for your strawberries...
mulberryknob
9 years ago
But obviously enough for the iris. I remember the first pic you ever posted of this side of the house. You've made a great improvement.
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wbonesteel
Original Author
9 years ago
Before I worked it over, that side of the house was boring...in a scary, horror movie sort of way.

Re-landscaping that part of the garden was more complex than I thought it would be when I first looked it over. The drainage was worse than it appeared to the naked eye.

The strawberries in the iris bed receive dappled sun most of the day. There are some amendments in that bed, too. This is the first season for them, so I was surprised to see so many blooms and berries on them.

The beds by the hose reel have nothing in them but plants and un-amended dirt. The strawberries in that bed aren't doing as well as the others, but they still have flowers and a few berries. Kinda surprised me, really. Except for the ends of those beds - near the corners of the house - they barely get any sun at all.

Last fall I was sorta tossing extra seeds and strawberry runners in there, just to see what would happen. Interesting little experiment. Worked better than I thought it would.