A bit of work on the shade garden

It is fun at the moment, every evening working on a different part of the garden.  Clearing the front, filling gaps in the succulent rockery or getting started on the shade garden.  The area to the side of the new kitchen was a bit of a sun trap last year and it was always the plan to try and create more shade for a slightly cooler place to sit, should the sun decide to show up. Here's the area after the alpine rockery was built last year.

The section on the left with all the rocks was the area selected for a shade section. Unusually for me, instead of planning it was more a spur of the moment deciscion to get on with it.  The original plants had come back with vengence, so that section had to be cleared again.  Then the left over rock was used to form a raised section. It was time to see where the tree ferns would go.

The idea was to raise it as much as possible producing a shade rockery.

It looks strange with just the tree fern trunks, which should hopefully send out their fronds once they are actually planted into place and given copious amounts of water.  The rocks look wrong as well without all the planting to hide them.  There is already a rough planting list, but it needs to be gone through now the space is starting to take shape. Then it is a trip to one of the specialist nurseries with an excuse to buy lots of plants!

Looking from the small seating area, the other reason for the tall plants is more obvious.

The garden is overlooked, it would be nice to have a more private section, hidden away. Not that anyone actually looks in apart from to see how the garden is going.

It is really strange to be enriching the soil, adding lots of organic material instead of gravel and sand to make it suitable for succulents.  That soil just looks rich and wet and so wrong.

Then there's the plants, so soft.

There will most likely be a few different ferns in there, this one is osmunda regalis ' purpurascens'.  It has lovely bronze coloured stems and new leaves.

Hopefully this section of the garden will grow much quicker than the succulent bed, it should be lush and green by the July when hopefully it will be needed for sheltered spot to relax out of the sun.

While that sections settles, it will be back to the front garden and plans are being drawn up for that one.

New year and new part of the garden

It is already the middle of Feb so this is probably the latest new year post on record, but those that have been following for a while will know I tend to hybernate over winter and loose all interest in plants.  The plants have been left to get on with it, the greenhouse all shut up and those inside the house watered once just to keep them going.

Then a few sunny, warmer days and it starts to feel like there may be an end to winter and the interest in plants returns again. It is a strange time, on the one front starting to thing of warmer days while knowing that it could and probably will go back to being cold with lots more frosts. On warm day though you have to get out and start exploring the garden again, looking at how the plants are doing and starting to make plants for the coming year.

This is year along side the spikie stuff, the rest of the garden needs to be sorted including the shade area. Strangely the first purcaseof the year was therefore not spikie at all but these. These were partly presents from friends and family who over the last year have been giving me I.O.Us and put together they added up to a fair amount of mystery package.

I am guessing most people may be able to guess they are tree fern trunks.  In the UK it is so much cheaper to buy unrooted trunks like this. A lot of frequent watering and they should soon send out their new fronds, assuming we don't have an extended cold period that is.

It is going to be interesting working on a whole different type of rockery, creating a shade area with lush greenery and hopefully som einteresting underplanting.

I'll save the unwrapping on here, until I start on the planting. But don't worry, while there will be the posts on the other parts of the garden, there are no plans to stop the succulent developements as well. I have a whole front garden to play with!