Bloom and Grow

Originally posted on www.cominguprosemary.com on 6.19.08.

Our yard is so very shady. Especially along the west side of the house. I have been trying to get shade plants to flourish since our first summer in the house ... and they're spreading and growing okay, but they've never "flourished."

This year they are doing the best they've ever done. I still wouldn't say they're flourishing, but they're doing pretty good for so much shade.

Above is a picture of the west side of our house, from the point of view of our house. The main plants you see, close up, are Sundrops. You can also see some hostas, snow on the mountain, and some ferns that my mom just gave to us this spring. I almost gave up on the Sundrops the first couple of years we had them - but this year they are doing better than almost every other plant. I can't wait for them to bloom!

Here is another picture of the garden view from the sidewalk:

Another garden area we have going on is along the sidewalk on the other side of our fence. If you look on the inside of the fence, you can see a rock path. We laid that last summer because it's the area where Owen runs, and it used to get really muddy. This year we are going to extend the rocks down into the sidewalk garden.

I used to hate this garden, as it was full of ugly plants. There were some weed-like things and a lot of peonies - yeah, yeah, I know everyone loves peonies - but I really don't. To me, they are a glorified carnation. But maybe that's just because they never did that great in this garden. We didn't just throw them, we moved them to other areas of our yard. So, we'll see how they do.

We ripped all those out, split up and spread out the overgrown hostas, and planted 5 Russian Cyprus plants. I don't know anything about Russian Cypress other than they are spruces, so we'll have something there through the winter, and they supposedly do well in shade. We will see!

I will have more garden pictures soon. I know it seems like this blog has turned into a garden blog, but I promise that won't be all. It's just that this is the time of season for gardening, I am really getting into it, and I consider gardening to be a craft.

Thanks for reading.