My Favorite Spot, May 18th
Wow. I can’t believe it’s already Friday and time for “my favorite spot” again! This week, I’ve chosen another shady nook, the NE side of the deck. (For the uninitiated, my house faces SE, so I have to resort to odd directional facings to describe my garden beds.)
Like most of my garden, this area was grass (please click on the link for a SHOCKING “before” photo) when we moved in. It was one of the first places I identified as future garden space, if for no other reason than to conceal the deck’s “legs.” Initially, I created beds that simply wrapped around the deck’s three sides, at a depth of only about 18 inches. After attending a few garden tours this summer, I added curves to the candycane bed and this side of the deck. The result is pleasing to the eye and allows more plantings to hide the deck’s nasty underside.
Along with the shape renovations, this area has undergone a number of plant edits as well. Initially, it was planted with clematis, trumpet vine, ostrich ferns, spiderwort, and Francee hosta. I am ashamed to admit that I planted the last three in a repeating pattern, wrapping around the NE and NW sides of the deck. Now, this semicircle contains the same vines, but more ostrich ferns and the addition of two Golden Lights azaleas (still very small), daffodils, repeat-blooming hostas (from a neighbor), primula japonica, and, my favorite groundcover of all time, sweet woodruff.
The plants are doing well. First the daffodils emerge to conceal the deck’s underpinnings, then, the ostrich ferns, which have multiplied this year, emerge to provide an even thicker screen. As the azaleas are still very small, the primroses provide some spring height and color. The hostas, transplanted last summer, are thriving. Although I’m eager to see the azaleas grown to their promised 5 foot height and cover themselves in golden blooms, I’ve found pleasure in the “right now” of my favorite spot.
Like most of my garden, this area was grass (please click on the link for a SHOCKING “before” photo) when we moved in. It was one of the first places I identified as future garden space, if for no other reason than to conceal the deck’s “legs.” Initially, I created beds that simply wrapped around the deck’s three sides, at a depth of only about 18 inches. After attending a few garden tours this summer, I added curves to the candycane bed and this side of the deck. The result is pleasing to the eye and allows more plantings to hide the deck’s nasty underside.Along with the shape renovations, this area has undergone a number of plant edits as well. Initially, it was planted with clematis, trumpet vine, ostrich ferns, spiderwort, and Francee hosta. I am ashamed to admit that I planted the last three in a repeating pattern, wrapping around the NE and NW sides of the deck. Now, this semicircle contains the same vines, but more ostrich ferns and the addition of two Golden Lights azaleas (still very small), daffodils, repeat-blooming hostas (from a neighbor), primula japonica, and, my favorite groundcover of all time, sweet woodruff.
The plants are doing well. First the daffodils emerge to conceal the deck’s underpinnings, then, the ostrich ferns, which have multiplied this year, emerge to provide an even thicker screen. As the azaleas are still very small, the primroses provide some spring height and color. The hostas, transplanted last summer, are thriving. Although I’m eager to see the azaleas grown to their promised 5 foot height and cover themselves in golden blooms, I’ve found pleasure in the “right now” of my favorite spot.
Labels: deck, hosta, my favorite spot, ostrich ferns, primrose, shade, sweet woodruff
posted by Kasmira at 18.5.07
3 Comments:
Hey! I think I know where you got at least some of those ferns.
The sedums are doing quite well, BTW. They're in tough spot, but I knew they'd do well there. The red-hot poker has actually multiplied although they're both kind of small still.
We all evolve as gardeners, that's part of the fun of gardening!
I love your deck by the way. It looks SO RELAXING!!
You've done wonderful work with your plantings - the area before was rather shocking in comparison to now.
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