(Trying Not To Be Quite So) Garden-Impaired

Back in July I asked for ideas about the weed-infested beds around my house, but I have only done anything about them in the past couple of weeks. (Jody said fall was the best time to put in perennials, so I figured I had time.) I was excited to put in some of the things you all suggested, but then realized when I went to the garden store that I hadn't told you: we have lots more shade than sun. This is mostly good -- we didn't turn on our air conditioning a single time this summer -- but rules out many of the plants I might have liked to try.

I am going to make a note of what I planted, so that if it comes back up next year I won't have to puzzle over what it might be called. I put in about two dozen bulbs: grape hyacinths, crocuses, and daffodils (my favorites). I'm hopeful that since daffodils bloom before the trees are leafed out, they'll get the sun they need. On the north side of the house I decided I would just be boring and stick with hostas for now: reliable (barring a late frost like the one that took out most of the hostas that used to live in those beds), reasonably pretty, nice and leafy to keep the weeds from getting a foothold. So I've got hostas behind and purple pansies, at the moment, in the front. I can manage to keep a few annuals in there, I think, despite my garden impairment.

Moving clockwise: on the east side of the house I put in a speedwell variant that can be happy with some shade, and cheery yellow daisies. On the south side, where it's full shade, I put in some vinca (purple-flowering ground cover) and lily of the valley. A pal offered me some ferns and they might go back there as well.

Around on the west we've had these hideous perennials: giant broad-leafed things with ugly ugly white flowers. I hate them. So I dug them all up, which was a project, and thinned out the badly overgrown tiger lilies that live by the sidewalk between our house and the next-door neighbors' house, and plopped in a mix of tiger lilies and day lilies. I am hoping for a riot of orange and yellow to replace the forest of ugly. On the northwest corner I put in another speedwell variety that prefers more sun, and some lavender. I am hoping they will grow up tall and purple and low-maintenance.

I am doing this pretty late in the season, but it's been quite warm here so I'm hoping they can get settled in before the first frost. If not, they were mostly 75% off so I'm not out a ton of money. We'll see, I guess.

Comments

[Summer]

You love daffodils. You have blatantly red hair. You're not secretly Welsh, are you?

[Jody]

Good luck -- I love that uncertainty, actually, and I love that my laziness has saved some plants, because stuff that looks miserable the first spring, sprang to life the year afterward.

My asters don't love my laziness, though, because they are flopped all over the garden now, blooming into the pebbles.

We have two stands of lavender, three plants in each location, and one thrives while the other struggles. Oddly enough, the struggling stuff gets more sun. Go figure. It's too bad it isn't consistent in our dirt, because I would plant it everywhere: weeding near a lavender patch is a genuine pleasure.