Keeping With The Times

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My Top 5 Perennials For Partial Shade Gardening

April 10, 2017 by Barb 13 Comments

My top 5 perennials for partial shade gardening may surprise you. In the years since we moved to our home on a lake near Edmonton, Alberta, I’ve learned a lot about partial shade gardening.

More precisely, I’ve learned a lot about partial shade, dappled shade, and shade gardening.

Today I’m sharing my top 5 perennials for a Zone 3a partial shade garden.

So what are the different types of shade? Well, according to a very helpful article I found at Lowes, here are three types:

  • partial shade is when an area receives two to six hours of direct sun a day
  • dappled shade happens when sunlight filters through trees (it shifts and changes throughout the day)
  • shade is when no sunlight is present ever (in our case it’s due to the house)

Partial shade gardening did not come natural to me.

I grew up on a grain farm in the wide open prairies of Saskatchewan. I then spent most of my married life on an acreage in Alberta which was bordered by trees, but consisted of a huge lawn and a gigantic garden “out back.” And what an amazing garden it was! We grew every vegetable imaginable; peas, onions, carrots, beans etc. etc. In the later years I started growing sun-loving flowers such as strawflowers, sunflowers, amaranth, grasses, and grains. Everything grew with abandon! It was quite joyful.

When our children grew up and left home, we decided to build our (retirement) home on a small lake and everything changed. Suddenly we were surrounded by extremely tall trees, and a lot of shrubby undergrowth.

I was not deterred ;)

Before we left our acreage I dug up a few of my precious peonies … there was no way I was leaving them (and no one was the wiser.) I stuck them in a plastic pot and they sat at the construction site from April to July where they actually bloomed!

Now they reside in the part of the garden that I define as part shade/dappled shade, and are thriving. I must add here that peonies prefer cooler climates with a pronounced winter chill (and that would be an understatement here ;)

I can’t believe I don’t have a better photo of the peonies, but here you can see the garden is surrounded by trees, and note the dappled sunlight at the bottom:

Partial Shade Gardening, Keeping With the TimesMy #1 choice of perennial for a part shade garden is definitely the peony, and I have four different types.

The hot pink variety with fewer petals:

Partial Shade Gardening, Keeping With the Times, Peonies… the dark pink and light pink variety with double petals:

Partial Shade Gardening, Keeping With the Times… and then there’s this white peony. It’s the most fragrant and it’s positively intoxicating:

Keeping With the TimesMy #2 choice is the amazing and beautiful hosta.

I planted a few in a small triangular bed formed by the house and the garage. It gets lightly touched by the sun, early in the morning, in mid-summer. So basically, they’re growing in shade (obviously I need to get some better photos this year!)

Over the years I’ve added several other different varieties at the back of the house and they’re indispensable in this type of garden. The downside to Hostas are slugs (yuck) but they can be controlled with slug bait and/or by picking them off by hand and squishing them (yes I did just say that!)

Partial Shade Gardening, Keeping With the TimesMy #3 choice is the quirky, hardy, and beautiful echinops.

Echinops is a tall plant which works beautifully at the back of the border. It thrives in dappled sunlight (which has always surprised me) and the thistle-like leaves stay attractive all summer. However, it’s the steel blue spherical flower heads that I absolutely adore. They are a bee magnet when they bloom and when harvested and dried they make the most fabulous winter bouquets! I have a few tips about growing and harvesting echinops coming up in another post.

Partial Shade Gardening, Keeping With the TimesPartial Shade Gardening, Keeping With the TimesPartial Shade Gardening, Keeping With the TimesPartial Shade Gardening, Keeping With the TimesMy #4 choice is the glorious anemone (anemone sylvestris). It’s an early bloomer, can run a bit rampant (eventually) and is not bothered by pests or disease.
Partial Shade Gardening, Keeping With the TimesPartial Shade Gardening, Keeping With the Times

My #5 choice is the stately delphinium. It tends to need staking to keep it from flopping over, but aside from that one little annoyance, it’s absolutely unbeatable as a background player in the perennial garden.
Partial Shade Gardening, Keeping With the Times

I have to tell you it was extremely hard to pick only five perennials … argh. I have at least a dozen others that are feeling pretty left out at the moment, but I’ll feature them later … perhaps as my favourite perennials “at this moment” which is when they are blooming :)

So to recap:

My Top 5 Perennials For Partial Shade Gardening

  1. Peonies
  2. Hosta
  3. Echinops
  4. Anemone
  5. Delphinium

Who else is dreaming of gardening?

xo

Top 5 Perennials for a Part-Shade Garden; my choices might surprise you!

Filed Under: GARDENING Tagged With: anemone, delphinium, echinops, hosta, peonies

Hope Springs Eternal

March 20, 2017 by Barb 2 Comments

Here’s a perfect example that hope springs eternal. These anemone bulbs look like dried prunes and are hard as rock, but in a few weeks I’ll be soaking them for 24 hours, then planting them indoors to be put out in the garden later (usually around the 24th of May) which btw seems like forever …

Hope Springs Eternal, Anemone Bulbs, Still Life, Flatlay, Barb BrookbankI’m not really sure it’s going to work, but I can hope. I’ll be posting my process and their progress in the coming weeks. Fingers crossed my friends (but it could take all year ;)

I already have Anemone sylvestris or snowdrop anemone which run rampant in my garden throughout May and June. They’re a hardier type native to meadows and dry deciduous woodlands of central and western Europe and they spread rapidly by root suckers.

Although they can be invasive, they’re one of my favourite flowers; delicate-looking and unassuming.

Hope Springs Eternal, Anemone Bulbs, Still Life, Flatlay, Barb Brookbank

Hope Springs Eternal, Anemone Bulbs, Still Life, Flatlay, Barb Brookbank

So what about you … are you dreaming of gardens and all things green?

 

Filed Under: GARDENING, Still Life Tagged With: anemone, flower, garden, spring

After a While … The Poem

February 5, 2017 by Barb 4 Comments

Recently I was reminded of this poem and thought I’d share it here again … I hope you don’t mind.

After a While

 After a while you learn the subtle difference

Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning

And company doesn’t mean security,

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts

And presents aren’t promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats

With your head up and your eyes open

With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today,

Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,

And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn

That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,

Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

That you really are strong,

And you really do have worth.

And you learn and learn…

With every goodbye you learn.

Veronica A Shoffstall

 

 

 

Have a peace-filled Sunday my friends.
xo

Filed Under: THIS 'N THAT Tagged With: anemone, gratitude, poems, quotes

Welcome! I'm Barb, and this is where I practice my mantra to "learn something new, try something different". It's my hope that something I do here may inspire you! Read More…

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