Instead of grass you could grow Irish moss. It will do well in shade and is a lovely shade of green. There are also lovely ferns that love shade. My favorite is the Japanese Painted fern. It’s silvery fronds are gorgeous and light up dark corners. Hellebores, wild ginger, pulmonarias, lamiums, ligularias, monkshoods, and spiderworts are just a few things that come to mind for shade.
I never had any luck with Irish moss… maybe I should of given it some beer?
Many heuchera plants love shade, also.
Here’s a couple of my espaliered apple trees.
I like the look people give me when they talk about my “grapes” and I tell them they’re apples.
I wish Irish Moss didn’t like me. It sure gets around my yard. I have a thyme lawn and I have to keep digging the Irish moss out of it.
A couple of more great shade plants are bleeding heart and brunnera. Growing them together is one of my favorite plant combos.
What a wonderful thread/topic! I really enjoy the pix and stuff…
hey, chainsaw muddyboots female = sexy! :teehee:
AS for a homeowners association not allowing a garden WHAT? How rotten is that, I thought pet lovers were bad but flower lovers?
I have a broken finger this year so I won’t be able to do my big garden as usual. I can’t believe it. I will put some little veggies in though, esp tomato plants. And lots of salad. As for hostas, they are so magical, you can just keep splitting them and get more and more… I’m lucky to have some that have tall purple flowers for a few months, I love those ones. My two big peony plants have gotten crowded out by a lilac bush so I have to figure out/do research if I can safely move them… ok, all for now
Peonies can be spit/divided just about like hosta, but wait until fall and don’t plant the divisions too deeply. The tip of the plant should be a little above the soil. I love peonies. They are so beautiful for so little effort.
Thanks for that tip! I will definitely split my peonies up this fall. For one, I can hardly see them from the house because the lilac bush is hiding them… I want to move them to a more prominent space.
Yours are pretty! Mine are pink.
I have white, pink, and red. The white ones are Felix Maxima and have a touch of red in the center. I just never seem to have time to take photos when all 3 colors are in bloom. The season is just too short for peonies. It’s daylily time now. I have several types that bloom thru the season.
Any tips on blueberries? I am so bummed! We bought two varieties. One was very well fruited. We planted them in the front of the house, south facing for lots of sun. The larger fruited plant is dying. The smaller one is doing much better. Any ideas? I think we are going to take it back to the nursery and get an exchange or refund. I was very excited to have fresh blueberries this year.
Blueberries are not sun plants. They require cool, moist, acid conditions. They grow wild as an understory plant in forests and prefer shade in the heat of the day. They like a ph of 5 to 5.5 and like a very humusy soil. If your soil is too neutral you can work sulfer into the soil about 2 weeks before planting and then scratch a little into the soil around the plants every couple of years. Lots of peat moss and compost worked into the soil helps hold moisture in while not making the soil soggy.
It sounds like your main problem is too much sun.
thanks for the tips! It makes me mad, since the lady at the nursery told us they need 5 hours of direct sunlight and the plant tags both stated full sun. I did notice the soil was too wet. I’ll have to drag some of our compost to the front this weekend and amend the soil a bit.
Blues also have very shallow root systems and don’t compete well with grass–they like a nice thick mulch to keep the roots cool, the weeds down, and the soil from drying out.
Oh, and [B]don’t [/B]use that plastic landscaping fabric–it just keeps organic material from filtering down into the soil…womrs turn and aerate the soil in search of dead organic matter to eat and if there is none they leave and hte soils slowly compacts to the point that water runs off rather than soaks in.
AHHHH!!! I don’t know what I want to do! :hair:
I’ve been wanting to compost for a while, been saving veggie scraps and egg shells and putting them in buckets in the freezer til I can figure out what the heck I want to do!!! I can’t make up my flipping mind. Composting it seems can be as easy or as labor intensive as you want to make it. Cold or hot pile? Should I build my own or buy a prefab one? Or what about vermicomposting? Geez o’ petes I’m losing it.
LOL, I had a cold pile…rabbits and deer and possums would check it for goodies regularly. Plus my chickens would hit it looking for bugs.
Not interested in a hot pile (like Gran’pa always said about compost and drying dishes: “I let God take care of that for me.”)
I have started taking a bit at a time out to the garden, laying it on the soil, covering with several sheets of used newspaper (no place around here to recycle), and covering with lawn clippings. Composting in place like this was called ‘sheet composting’ at one time. I don’t do this right up against a plant tho–if a racoon or possum decided to dig up goodies they’d likely get the plant too.
I have a bucket under the sink for kitchen scraps.
I generally do a cold pile. I used to do hot piles but that’s too much work. I save back enough leaves to throw on the cold pile to keep it from smelling whenever a bucket is added and use the rest to till into the garden while I wait for the black gold to happen at the bottom of the pile.
If you’re in a real rush or don’t want piles hanging around and don’t want the extreme work of forking a pile back and forth I would buy one of those barrels that you spin. I think you can have it done in 2 weeks with that method if you really try.
If you want cold or to do the work of hot piles any method of fence to hold it in a pile will be good. I just have two circles of wire fence. Wood slats would hide it better and you could design it with a removable separator between the two piles so you don’t have to throw up and over the middle.
I didn’t notice before that you live on the west side of the state. Are you familiar with huckleberries? They and blueberries are in the same family and blueberries like pretty much the same conditions except the altitude. East side of the house would be great or somewhere where they get some shade in the afternoon. Dappled sunshine is great. Huckleberries grow in a partly sunny area on the mountain sides and when I picked wild blueberries in Pa as a child they also grew in lightly forested areas. They do resent competition from other plants so a good mulch is a great idea. My blueberries finally died when quack grass choked them out.
Yeah, I was thinking of just making it easy and reusing some plastic fencing and stakes that I had around my veggie garden last year. I wouldn’t have a lot of lawn scraps, I like to burn them (Fire!! hehe) I use the ashes on a regular basis. And the fact that my husband rarely eats anything green maybe a small worm bin could work. Let the little wormies do the work?
You’ll change from wanting to burn everything.
You’ll never get enough lawn clippings or leaves. It’s kind of addicting if you have any use for the black dirt.
I find cold composting easier. I have 2 compost areas with 3 compartments each made with concrete blocks. I fill them as I get plant waste and when one is full I start on the next one. When all 3 are full I toss the outer layer from the 1st one onto the next and use the finished compost. I can’t even come close to making enough compost for my yard. I use horse manure for the vegetable garden. I cover my garden every fall with manure and till it in in the spring. I also try and put an inch or so of compost on my flower beds each fall.