In my garden - what a neat idea!

Last year I started collecting plants for the shade bed and just planted them where there was room. This year I got a few more. It is going to be a lot of work to re-arrange the bed, but I can't wait to get started.

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This is the largest rock that will be going into the shade bed.

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The neighbors have black walnut trees so I can't plant most evergreens, which I love. Next year I will be making hypertufa troughs and attempt to keep the evergreens small. In the meantime, I found these boxes so I can indulge in my new obsession: mini evergreens.

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Janet,

What a nice variety of shade plants you have!
Yes, it's a lot of work to re-arrange a bed, and it's an on-going process, as plants mature. I've moved Hostas around because of light or height or width, or color accents.

Are you going to use a front-end loader to move that rock?!

The evergreen box is fantastic! You have quite a gift of plant arranging there.

Here is a stitched photo of one of my shade gardens:

More photos, Wisconsinites?

Julie

Nice shade bed, Julie!

We are able to move the rock by either rolling it along the ground, or rolling it into what we call the rock sled and then sliding that along boards. The tricky part will be getting it positioned the right way in the hole.

Beautiful pictures Julie, and Janet, I love the planter box!

Here are my I plants:

Illicit Affair

Invincible (on left)

Iron Gate Glamour

Jen, your Hostas all look so pretty and healthy!
I see your favorite forum is the Hosta forum, so you must have oodles of them! I started posting Hostas in the gallery of the Hosta forum when they first started with the alphabet, but couldn't keep up, because we had a terrible Microburst of a storm that left most of my Hostas in shreads, and a lot of them still look that way!

I have Invincible, but not the other two.
Iron Gate Glamour looks like a large one.

Thanks for showing your photos!

Julie

Thanks Jen. The lettering on the side is attractive, don't you think? lol. I didn't notice the lettering until I posted the photo. I've been so enamored with the mini mugo pine that that is all I could see.

Janetpetiole- RE "...The neighbors have black walnut trees so I can't plant most evergreens..."

Being a Tsuga junkie, I can say Eastern Hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis) can handle both the shade and the juglone of Black Walnuts. There are also some Chamaecyparis that might handle your zone 4b. I have both under Black Walnuts in my yard. Also, on the drip edge (and well within the root zone of the walnut) I have the following pines: White (Pinus strobus), Swiss (P. cembra), Japanese White (P. parviflora)and Japanese Red (P. densiflora)along with an Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis). The walnuts also are my neighbors (I'm sandwiched between two of them)and in 20 years of trial and error I was surprised at how many conifers are not affected by them.

tj

Last weekend, in the sunnier corner of the yard, and right by one of the walnuts, I planted it up with
Emerald Green Arborvitae
Sea Green Juniper
Old Gold Juniper
Sherwood Frost Arborvitae
Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Filifera Sungold' I think that is the variety. The guy was really busy with other customers, so I can't be sure. Either way, it is a fantastic color.

Pines - I thought juglone was deadly to pines. I give you credit for taking the risk. Although I rarely find black walnut roots when digging, I'm still afraid to take any chances with trees and slow growing shrubs.

I didn't know about Eastern Hemlocks were resistant, or it is possible that I forgot. Such a pretty tree. Any dwarf varieties?

Hemlocks have many dwarf and a few miniature varieties. I have Jervis, Lewis, Dawson, Bennett, Cappies Choice and Geneva (will get to 15 feet in, oh, 75 years). Two miniatures I have are Popaleski (spelled different ways) and Cloud Prune. Walnuts don't bother hemlocks in the least. The Conifer Forum was discussing White pines and juglone recently and had several examples of it not being a problem and I recall no examples of problems. Mine have been there for anywhere from 5 to 8 years. Shade is more of an issue with them than juglone, for me at least.

tj