Planting for Moist Shade - Part 2
Last week, I introduced you to my Circle Garden which, until a couple of weeks ago, was the only spot in my USDA zone 7 garden that I could keep damp enough to make real moisture lovers happy.
I have a lot of pictures to show you, so this page may load slowly for some of you; your patience is, as always, appreciated.
The Circle Garden, September, 1990
By September of 1990, the year after the garden was completed, the raw, new look was gone and it looked like it had always been there. Nothing planted had reached its full size, but things were coming along nicely.
Once the trees and large shrubs have leafed out, this garden is in heavy shade, except for one side, which receives a strong shaft of light at high noon, lasting for perhaps an hour or so. There was more light when this picture was taken than there is now, since the trees and shrubs on the south (driveway) side have nearly doubled in size.
The plants that I've put in the small, artificially irrigated, bed surrounding the bird bath are the ones that really want continual moisture during the growing season. Some interlopers who have seeded into the bed, like Begonia grandis (hardy begonia) and Brunnera macrophylla, thrive just as well in dry shade. I'm continually pulling them out, but they keep returning.
The Center Of The Circle Garden
Spring is a magical time for gardens and especially this bed, as one by one the inhabitants awake and stretch out of the warming earth. On the far left are the stems (or stipes in fern talk) of Royal Ferns; in the center, the emerging Rodgersia foliage and behind their stems you can just see the round, leathery leaves of Ligularia dentata 'Desdemona,' who is among the first to surface from winter's sleep.
My Royal Fern (Osmunda regalis) dominates this bed, once she gets going.
From downy, tightly rolled croziers spring stiff, fresh, apple green stems that stand soldier straight early in the season. Native from Canada to Florida and Missouri, Royal Ferns prefer a highly acid soil that is always moist, but have proved adaptable to various types of soil and conditions. They are very happy along natural pond edges and stream banks. Given the right position, this is a majestic fern (hence it's claim to royalty), that can reach six to eight feet (2 - 2.43 m) in height. Mine top out at around five feet (1.52 m). I've put one who was languishing in a border into my new boggy damp bed and I will be interested to see if the really wet soil causes it to grow taller than the ones in this garden.
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