(10/29) Our landscape has changed quite a bit over the years. When we first moved in to our home, the landscape was, well, uneventful. There was a grassy meadow on either side of the house, a forest way behind the house, and in between, grass…just grass. There were no trees in what you might consider the "yard." Due to the grading that was done when we built the house, there was a bank along the side of the driveway. Everything was full sun. Shade was only casted from the house itself.

Then the planting began. On the bank, Viburnum ‘Pragense’ was at the top of the slope, Forsythia x ‘Courtasol’ grows on the slope. A Zelcova serrata is the shade tree we chose to anchor the bank garden, with Sumac ‘Lo-gro’ spreading on the flattest part.

Viburnum ‘Pragense’ is an evergreen viburnum. It will reach about 15’ high. In my garden, it easily reached that height, and provided a great screen along the drive. About fifteen years of growth, and the plants began to die, or what seemed as though they were dying, and we cut them down. What we found was holes from yellow bellied sapsuckers on the branches. Those plants have since re-grown from the base, and five years after the severe cut, they are providing the screening they did once before.

Zelcova is a large shade tree that is absolutely beautiful this time of year. It has colors of red, yellow and orange. Brilliant. The Lo-gro sumac looks fantastic in the foreground of the zelkova as they have an orange fall color.

As these plants began to grow, the bank planting got wider and more impactful. Peonies were added, Vitex Agnus-castus became an additional grouping to this planting. Sedum ‘Matrona’ along with lamb’s ears was also added. Nyssa sylvatica (blackgum) was added for additional vertical structure, along with sassafras.

The vitex is a full sun plant, although as shade creeps in, they are holding their own. In our hardiness zone six of these plants will die down to the ground and push all new growth the following year. They get blue/purple flowers in August. Blackgum has a great fall color – dark red – looking fantastic this time of year and has a conical shape to the canopy, much like a pin oak.

As the Zelcova and blackgum grew, our full sun garden began to change. Twenty years later, the sun struggles to reach the ground. The sedum stretched and lamb’s ears have moved to more sun. Geranium sanguineum have begun to seed in from an adjoining area and are filling in spaces the lamb’s ear used to claim. The sassafras has begun to colonize, as they like to do in their natural environment. The sedums need to move to more sun and shade perennials must replace them. Possibly epimediums could replace them, a twelve-inch, slow growing, ground cover type shade perennial. Or maybe introduce some carex, a grassy type perennial, with lots of species to choose.

Along the side of the house, Pinus strobus ‘Colunmaris’ (columnar white pine) was planted, along with Acer griseum (paperbark maple) and Cornus alternifolia. Full sun perennials were planted in and around these trees - perennials like Phlox paniculata, Anenome sylvestris, and Nepeta x faassenii ‘Walker’s Low’. Some shrubs planted included Clethra alnifolia ‘Summersweet’ and Ilex glabra. Planting beds, that began at a width of maybe eight to ten feet, are now as wide as fifteen plus feet. Full sun perennials were replaced with part shade perennials, just to be replaced again with full sun plants and the columnar white pine had to be cut down (they grew much taller and much quicker than anticipated).

Paperbark maple is a small growing tree, reaching about 25 – 30 feet tall. It has a peeling bark that looks like cinnamon. It is a full sun plant, but casts quite a bit of shade once it’s grown.

Cornus alternifolia is a tree that is as wide as tall, about 25’. Very rounded in shape and typically low branched, this dogwood becomes covered with white flowers in the spring. In my garden there are some wild violets that have made it their home and a few lily-of-the-valley, Convallaria majalis (very fragment when in bloom) trying to battle for land.

The straight species, Ilex glabra, tends to be very open in form. It is an evergreen shrub, and can get four feet tall, which is exactly what it did in my garden. And the more shade it receives, the more open it becomes. I have since replaced these with Cornus sericea (red twig dogwood) as I thought I needed something a bit taller, and the winter stems are lovely on the shrub dogwoods.

The herbaceous material in this area have actually adapted well to the differences in sunlight. The Anenome sylvestris loves the partial shade. Some additional plants in the garden, as a result of less sunlight, are hostas, ferns and coral bells. The Phlox paniculata will be finding a new home in the spring, as the powdery mildew this year had just turned the foliage from green, to gray, to brown in short order.

Anenome sylvestris is a tall ground cover plant, with white flowers in spring. It does like moisture and will wilt and die out a bit if it becomes too dry. This seems to be a love it or hate it plant, because it can be aggressive in a garden if it is happy. Just remember to use it as a ground cover.

New hosta and coral bell cultivars are being introduced every year. These plants are typically grown for their foliage and texture. A trip to the garden center in May can be overwhelming with all the choices of these plants, which led me to a design that lends itself to a "collector’s" garden. Hostas, ferns and coral bells have made a home under the paperbark maple, where many cultivars live together.

A planting of seedling birch trees has grown into an island planting, underplanted with coral bells, iris cristata, Pachera aurea (ragwort) and Christmas ferns. What started as "we’ll see what we get from these" ended up as a lovely shade garden, albeit dry. The iris blooms in early spring reaching about five inches tall. The ragwort is a yellow flower, stretching up above the six-inch foliage to about twelve inches. Christmas fern is one of our native evergreen ferns. This pretty plant will keep its leaves throughout the winter months.

As the birch trees, twenty years later, are beginning to die back branch by branch, we recognize that something new will need to take their place. Small Amelanchier canadensis (serviceberry) have been planted so as birch branches are pruned, the serviceberry will grow to take their place in the garden, hopefully providing enough shade for the already established understory.

Gardens are always changing. What starts out as a full sun garden, can change into a shade garden and vice versa. Let it never be said that a garden is once and done. This is what makes gardening so much fun and has kept my interest all these years later: working the soil and the plants within it.

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