Category — Shade gardens

This is the time of year when I start to spend more time in by the fire than out in the garden (although I still have more bulbs to plant…). One of my amusements is to look through the garden pictures, with an eye to what worked and what didn’t.

I want to make my grouping of plants under the big madrone into a more cohesive group, so one of the things I’ve been looking for is plants that have worked well in semishade for me. Northern Shade has opened my eyes to how much texture and color you can get with the right foliage, something I might have worked out by looking at the forest floor. But sometimes gardening is like a crossword puzzle: somebody fresh has to come along to fill in the blanks you can’t get.  I’ll need to do research on the plants Northern Shade recommends, though, since my climate is a lot hotter and dryer.

Before I was reminded of the possibilities of foliage, though, my original shade-plant-finding focus was a hunger for flowers; flowers for summer (after the bulbs) and for shade to semishade, which is mostly what I’ve got.

The digitalis in the photo at the head of this post obviously did very well under the madrone (the red-barked shiny-leaved tree you can see in the picture). And I have a past history of digitalis doing well in places like this, where they get some morning sun, and occasional dapples throughout the day. This foxglove (an unknown variety from the drugstore) kept on gradually increasing its spire as it flowered, until it had a whippy spine of seedheads several feet high, topped with a few flowers.

My ‘Royal Standard’ hosta is a common plant, but a new venture for me. It sulked in the full shade I gave it before, putting out a few leaves but never flowering. I had mixed feelings about hostas; they seemed kind of like, I don’t know, plants for gardeners who had completely matched wardrobes and sock drawers with no strays: not plants that would fit in my garden.  But in my continual research for shade plants that flower, I’d found that hostas fit the bill, and that some of them even had fragrant flowers. When I went to a local plant sale, it was pretty easy for me to get persuaded into a good deal on Royal Standard.

I found that this junior leaguer actually fit quite well into my garden, once I put it in a pot on the back porch where it got more shots of sun. It brought forth the beautiful rose-flushed buds that turned into a modest scape of (to my nose) mildly sweet-scented flowers. (For those of you who are wondering about the dead leaves in the background: those are buckeye leaves, which are the earliest to come out, and shrivel by late summer.)

My prejudices began to tumble. I started to see what people saw in the leaves: the innocence of the tiny leaves on the flowering stem,

the sensuous ribs of the broad leaves below–

which turned gold all at once in fall.

Next post: more flowering shade plants

Even aphids can be beautiful in the right setting…and they haven’t bothered this umckaloabo plant a bit.

 If you’re looking for a bright, splashy geranium, Pelargonium sidoides isn’t it. But if you’re looking for subtle beauty and healing power, this may be a plant for you.

  First of all, let’s get our terminology straight: what we usually call geraniums are actually pelargoniums. Long ago, someone categorized the scented, multi-color-leaved, and bright-flowering plants as geraniums. The botanists have corrected this error, but ordinary people (and some garden catalogues) go right on calling them geraniums. Botanical geraniums are  much more inconspicuous, low-growing plants, and some of them are native to the U.S.   Pelargoniums, on the other hand, are native to South Africa. (Pelargonium comes from the Greek pelargos, “stork”; the seedhead is supposed to resemble a stork’s bill.)

 Pelargonium sidoides came to European gardens in a different way than a lot of the splashier pelargoniums. In the 1800s, the story goes, a German man was sent to South Africa to cure his tuberculosis. A dry, warm, climate was often recommended for this condition, which wasn’t considered curable in Europe. A different climate and careful living could prolong the life of a tuberculosis patient, but they would always have the disease. And sooner or later, it would get them. The German man had a different experience. Somehow, he connected with a traditional healer who gave him umckaloabo. And a strange thing happened: the tuberculosis went away. It even stayed away when the former tuberculosis patient returned to Germany, there to tout his miracle cure.

In the 20^th and 21^st century, European research showed what that South African healer had known all along: umckaloabo is effective in healing respiratory illness of almost any kind: bronchitis, sinus troubles, plain old colds. Even very serious respiratory problems. I know that for a fact, because I had chronic bronchitis for more than four decades-before I started using Umcka extract. Each winter, I’d get at least one hellacious case of gut-wrenching, hollowly resonant coughing spells for a week or two, especially if I caught a cold or flu. Now I don’t, because I take a dropperful of umcka extract the minute I feel that weird sensation in my chest that used to come before an onslaught. I’ve recommended Umcka to many people: for those coughs that just hung on for weeks and weeks, and especially for children, because unlike most other cough preparations, Umcka has no nasty sedatives in it. You can take it and think and move just like a real human being–a decided advantage. By the way, I’m not being paid to advertise–I just find that umcka is so far superior to any respiratory remedy I’ve tried that I want to pass the information along. It’s made a huge difference in my life.

I am troubled by some recent information I’ve found: since it’s become so popular, umcka is now threatened in its native territory. The people who live there naturally want to improve their lot, and it has been overgathered. All the more reason for growing our own, to make sure there are more plants in circulation. 

I like to grow the plants I use for healing–it’s a good way to understand them better–so I was thrilled when I found that one of our local nurseries had Pelargonium sidoides for sale. It’s not one of your easier-to-find geraniums, but it takes the same care as the usual kinds. They don’t take freezes, and while they like sun, in hotter climates you’ll want to give them part shade so they don’t fry. Judging by an abandoned greenhouse I found years ago on the southern California coast, pelargoniums thrive by any ocean where the weather doesn’t go below freezing. They need drainage, and they need to dry out between waterings. Goodwin Creek gardens recommends halving whatever fertilizer you generally use. Maybe I’ll remember this, or maybe I’ll just continue fertilizing them when I fertilize my other plants. 

Pelargonium sidoides doesn’t have scented leaves, but I love the soft hairy grey-green of their foliage, one of the typical geranium shapes. 

  And then there are the flowers:

   My umckaoloba may never get big enough for me to make my own tincture. I have to take it in when winter comes, and since my place is small, I have to limit the size of the pot. But I’m happy to make a closer acquaintance with a plant who’s kept me and my neighbors from debilitating illness. And I’m grateful for the amazing line of connections that has brought this subtly beautiful South African native to my back porch. 

      References:

Goodwin Creek Gardens - These folks literally wrote the book on pelargoniums–Scented Geraniums: Knowing, Growing, & Using Pelargoniums,  At last count, they grow 75 varieties at their mail-order nursery, specializing in the scented-leaf and zonal-leaf types, which generally have smaller flowers. They don’t carry P. sidoides, though. 

Logee’s offers Pelargonium sidoides among their many wonderful items. Their plants always arrive healthy and in good shape.

  Thyme Will Tell is the site where I got the info on the over-harvesting of umckaloabo.  The information on Pelargonium sidoides is tucked at the bottom of this general article on pelargoniums (or geraniums).

‘Penelope’ is one of those obliging roses that will bloom even in shade. It’s one of the Pemberton roses, Joseph Pemberton being a British clergyman who bred them in the early twentieth century.

OK. I’m going to take a brief break here.

I’ve made a nomenclature decision. I know that, properly, a cultivar name goes in quotes. And it bothers me not to have it in quotes. But when I repeat this throughout a blog, it just looks fussy and too much. So from now on, cultivar names will go in quotes the first time in the post. After that, I’ll assume you’ve been introduced, and quotes will never darken the blog post again.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Pemberton roses are also called Hybrid Musk roses, but they don’t really have much musk rose blood (or chlorophyll) in them, so I’m calling them Pemberton roses after the styling of Graham Stuart Thomas.

When it comes to old roses, you can’t go wrong following that Font of Rose Wisdom, Graham Stuart Thomas. (I also just found a very fun and informative article on an old-rose grower north of Seattle).

Penelope, like many of the Pemberton roses, is a sort of semi-climber; you can train it over things but I wind up basically leaning mine up against a tree, where it lolls and sprawls and sometimes flowers.

One of the advantages of the Pemberton roses (besides that they will actually bloom in high shade and semi-shade) is that you can put them near where you walk; they tend to have few or no thorns. At least the types I’ve grown (Penelope, Buff Beauty, Cornelia) are like that.

Another advantage is that Pemberton roses aren’t temperamental, like hybrid tea roses. They have nice graceful foliage, usually a bit shiny, which seems to be pretty pest-resistant (barring the deer). Pemberton roses take the same care as a shrub rose or most of the David Austin roses, which is to say, they need to be fed and watered, but they don’t require constant manicuring or inordinate amounts of fertilizer and pest-killing.

Though Pemberton roses were a repeat-blooming breakthrough in their day, don’t expect them to act like roses developed since WWII, where constant blooming action has been the breeding aim. Pemberton roses give you a flush of bloom in late spring/early summer, and occasionally come up with a rose or two as the season goes on. When it starts to cool in the fall, they generally have another blooming session.

I enjoy the way Penelope fades from a pale peach to a very faintly peachy off-white. Hotter weather definitely makes them emerge in lighter colors; cooler weather deepens them.

Not all of the Pemberton roses have the simple semi-double flowers of Penelope, but many of them do. They’re ideal for blending into the woods, so I tend to put them more on the edges of the garden although “edges” in my garden are pretty wavery and definitely irregular. It might be more accurate to say that I plant them further from the house, but not too far to enjoy in my daily ramblings around.

Where to get Penelope

Just so you know, this is a lousy time to plant roses. If it isn’t hot already, it’s going to get hot soon, unless you’re in the Southern hemisphere, in which case, go for it. It’s a good time. Otherwise-do the research, plan for the space (if you’re really organized, you can even prepare the hole), and wait. No plant likes being transplanted in hot weather.

If you’re one of those annoying people who transplants in hot weather and the plants live anyway, go ahead. Mere mortals are more likely to succeed if we wait until fall. If you’re going bare-root, plant whenever the bare-root planting season is in your area.

ask at local nurseries:

There’s a growing interest (no pun intended) in older roses that has finally landed many of them back in regular nurseries. (When I started growing them some years ago, you could only get them through specialists, or cuttings.) If you ask, a nursery might get them in if they don’t have them already. Nurseries get things in to match local planting seasons, so you’ll be assured you’re getting them in at the best time.

try these web sites, or look up “heirloom roses”, “antique roses”, or “heritage roses” on the web (hint: pick a grower in a climate similar to yours. And suss out what Dave’s Garden Watchdog has to say about them (that’s actually two hints)):

http://www.heritageroses.com/welcome.htm - They grow roses on their own roots, which some people (including me) prefer. If you live in a very cold climate, you might do better with grafted roses.

http://www.antiqueroseemporium.com- Another good source of roses on their own roots. They specialize in roses that do well in hot climates.

References

Graham Stuart Thomas, The Graham Stuart Thomas Rose Book, Sagapress/Timber Press 1994.This book is a compendium of three GST titles: Old Shrub Roses, Shrub Roses of Today, and Climbing Roses Old and New. You can often find them secondhand. There are a lot of good books out on old roses, but Graham Stuart Thomas’s books are essential.

Here’s one of our native purple bush lupines, taken after rain–back when we still had rain.  Lupines are in the pea family, so they add nitrogen to the soil.  Most of the wild varieties are perennial and take some freezing, as well as positions on crushed-granite hillsides or dried-clay roadsides.  Unlike garden lupines, they can also take heat-though they bloom before it gets really hot, and tend to go almost dormant by late summer. This Lupine albifrons is growing in semi-open woods.

One of my very favorite trees, madrones are beautiful in themselves, and make a gracious background for semishade garden plants. (I like to pick the more woodsy types for growing under them. Lilies, columbine, and digitalis are among the good choices for shelter by madrone.) Their brilliant, shiny-green new growth is almost shocking amongst the older, dark-green glossy leaves. They’re semi-evergreen-that is, they do lose leaves, but they always have some on the tree.

Madrones (Arbutus menziesii) are in the heath family, along with manzanita, bearberry, and the European heaths and heathers. They like a high water table (though they don’t need to actually be watered) and they grow bigger and healthier where there’s plenty of moisture in the air as well. Despite their preferences, they grow beautifully in my dry-summer area.

If this weren’t an essay on foliage, I’d go into the many wonders of madrones–bark, berries, flowers, uses, and all-but it really deserves its own post, so I’ll save that for another time.

Black oaks (Quercus kelloggii )  starting to turn in the fall. We don’t get the dramatic colors of New England or the Midwest, but the turning of oaks from green to gold is a quiet drama that lights up every autumn.

Even the final show of foliage–dead and on the ground–has its own beauty.

Columbines are the quintessential shade-garden plant. Once you’ve found their spot, they happily make graceful leaves year after year. In early summer, there are the transcendent flowers, designed to glow in slanting woodland light. This year, deer pruned the first buds on this plant, but it came back, making one perfect flower. And that was enough.

This particular columbine’s name is lost in the mists of time. I wrote it on the aluminum tag, which buried itself and seems to have entered an alternate universe somewhere in the container. I bought the plant at a local nursery years ago, I know that much.

Whatever its name, I rarely think of it except when I see the flowers come out each year. It takes care of itself through heat, freezes, drought, and rain.

The container I have it in is one of those desperate measures that somehow has worked out better than a well-plotted care system. (It was ever thus.) I knew aquilegias like moisture; the wild ones grow by creeksides and wherever the soil is always wet (or at least damp). I was gardening in a drought with a tiny water supply. So I devised a container out of a plastic storage tub, using a bit of gravel on the bottom for some drainage, but incorporating polymer-saving crystals into the top layer of soil. I didn’t make any drainage holes at all.

For those who don’t know about them, polymer crystals absorb many times their weight in water, then release it to the soil gradually. That ensures that plants don’t dry out, especially in small containers. They get a steady water supply, and you water less. A pretty good deal.

I’m careful not to overwater, but since I can’t regulate the winter rains, I can only conclude that aquilegias are true waterside plants that have adapted to constant wetness without rotting.

The only care they get is the fertilizing and watering that I give to most of my plants.

I still haven’t successfully grown columbines from seed, though the one I have seems to seed itself nicely. Just one of the many frustrations of a gardener. I keep trying, because there are many aquilegias you just can’t get in plant form. This winter, I planted seed from Aquilegia atrata, a deep almost-black. I love that color in plants anyway, but I thought it would be especially nice along with my white columbine. This fall I’m thinking of getting an Aquilegia chrysantha plant, as a consolation. Pale yellow is beautiful, too.

I tend to prefer the columbines that are species (wild) types, or cultivars that don’t go far from their wild heritage. You can’t improve something that already has a perfect form. Double columbines just seem full and fussy to me, and as for spurless columbines–as Irish fiddler Martin Hayes said of arriving in New York and discovering decaffeinated coffee—”What’s the point?”

Places to get wild and wild-type columbines:

your local nursery, when they’re in bloom so you can see them

Goodwin Creek
J. L. Hudson
Thompson & Morgan
Annie’s Annuals
Select Seeds