How the Garden Grows

The perennial shade garden seems to be doing well this year. We lost a nice Bleeding heart over the winter, which caused the big bare spot in the back of the perennial bed, and another ivy that put in last fall to reinforce my fading ivy. Now that I think about it, we also lost a very old honeysuckle vine as well. That's gardening.

I was too late to replace the Bleeding heart this year; they cook down pretty quickly in summer and the garden shops did not have any left by the time I got around to trying to replace it. I did transplant a small volunteer ivy last night (rescued from my side of the neighbor's retaining wall), so I will try and nurture that into something before the freeze hits and reinforce my anemic Boston ivy.

As for the honeysuckle vine, Minnihaha garden center did not have any of those, either. I went with a trumpet vine instead. Those can be a little aggressive, but they are good for humming birds, so I felt I was willing to deal with the aggressiveness and see if I can get some hummers. If it's too much to deal with and swallows my garage, I'll just pull it out and go for Wisteria or something.

Our yard is very "mature" and the only real gardening space is pretty much dry shade. Despite that little challenge, I am pretty pleased with what we have done with it.