Very Full Shade Garden

I'm still alive!

Wow, it has been embarrassingly long since I've posted. My deep apologies to my very loyal 5 person fan base!


I'll start with my favorite before I update on the not-so-favorites (i.e. fails!).

Have I mentioned enough times how much I love this garden?!


Looking down from my deck:

And just to the left is our row of Rose of Sharon bushes that are so incredible when they're all in bloom!

Unfortunately, we always seem to get a big storm right when they're at their peak, which bowls them over and they just do not stand back up! Husband had to trim them
down significantly so they are more respectable (he waited until most of the blooms were done to do this...we also try to be conscious of our neighbors and not let them grow into/over their yard).



And as you can see in these pictures, the Phlox bloomed incredibly!

I cannot believe how long those blossoms stay on there! They started in mid-July and are still there, though slowly fading and dropping away.

My fancy little Britt-Marie Crawford bloomed nicely too:

Cheery, yellow flowers that shoot up quite tall! They lasted for a few weeks.


The Astilbes bloom seemed to be a lot shorter than I remember last year; that was a little sad.

And now they're just brown poofs, so that's weird.  But the bumblebees loooooved them when they were in bloom!


This little guy popped up in the path and the leaves looked promising, so I left him and then...ooooh, it's blooming! That's exciting! Must be a nice plant!

Yeaaaah, no. Pretty sure that's a weed.
Pulled it out. Hope I got it before it totally seeded itself :-/

But the elephant ears have finally made a good showing, so hopefully, if I'm careful with the bulbs this year ( 😨 ), they will be huge and beautiful and back to their initial spectacularness next year!


The larger, solid green one in the back has just this past week or two gotten to looking more like the giant leaves you expect with these types of elephant ears....about 8" wide by 12-15" long leaves.


I love the beautiful coloring and pattern of the black variety I have.

Apparently my yard does too because a few weeks ago I found an accidental transplant!!
Just growing
along with all the weeds in the forsaken corner of the garden (that I intend to slowly transform into part of the shade garden until we build a shed there). I have no theories as to how it got there other than perhaps I discarded an old bulb with the weeds I used to stack there to dry out.


Then there's the avocado trees!
The larger/older one has always done very well outside over the summer, but I don't know that I ever remember it doubling in size! Both trees are looking incredible! (Except for the lack of water in the photo at the bottom; shhh, don't judge...I watered them right after the picture was taken and they pop back beautifully!)

This one to the left is the original and is almost 5' tall now!
The one in the photo above (behind the larger elephant ears) has also about doubled during its first summer outside!

May I remind you that both of those came from my compost pile?!

I'm quite proud of the little showing my fuchsia bush all full of blooms...though it's still not much more than a foot tall! I thought with the trees trimmed last year, this summer it would shoot up. Guess it's slow and steady!


Even though by now most of the flowers are fading, the garden is still SO beautiful because of all the rich greens and the colorful leaves mixed in.


And something else is starting to bloom!

Last year we were at the nursery and saw a bunch of Autumn Joy sedum. We were commenting how similar the leaves looked to what my Mom-in-law had given me.
The nursery worker said she loves hers and how beautifully it blooms.
Huh.
Well, then it can't be ours because ours doesn't bloom, but man, does it ever look like what we have!

So then what do I see appearing these last few weeks?!

Little, teeny, adorable, beautiful mauve blossoms!

I guess because it had just been planted that summer, that's why it didn't bloom last year. What a delightful surprise!  It really is carrying the garden nicely into fall as most other blooms are nearly spent now.


I continue to work on my little pebblestone path as I have time and get inspired. It's super cute! Just need to get moving on more of it!
(I also need to raise some of the stones that have gotten covered in mud from being too low.)

Contrary to my usual experience as a gardener, it is a very pretty, happy, self-sustaining little garden!