Before

Our yard is small, we live in the city so we accept it. Most of our gar­den­ing is done in con­tain­ers. We stick to herbs and flow­ers mainly after a few unsuc­cess­ful attempts with tomatoes.

My hus­band Kerry is in charge of the yard. His idea of gar­den­ing is to let weeds thrive so things look lush & green, hence the lovely milk­weed and crab­grass bor­der lead­ing to our door.

We have this hor­ri­ble area in the back of the yard that barely gets any sun. Kerry decided he wanted to make it nice, so he trans­planted some of his pre­cious weeds over to it.

Enough was enough. I dragged him to Fiesta’s Garden Centre and told him to stock up on real plants. After the req­ui­site ‘kid in candy store’ rou­tine, we brought every­thing home and started planting.

Some English ivy, Lady ferns and forget-me-nots went in, with a few Stiletto hostas — the most reli­able shade plant ever. Our dog Betty reg­u­larly digs up the hostas or lies on top of them and they just keep on grow­ing. We like tough plants that can stand up to dogs. Maybe that’s why Kerry has such a soft spot for tena­cious weeds.

Some other plants that do well in shade are wild geranium/cranesbill gera­nium, Jack-in-the-pulpit, Dogs Tooth vio­lets, plume­ria, bleed­ing hearts and Canadian Colombine.

Get your­self some rick­ety old pink flamin­gos and you’ve got a lovely shade gar­den. The forget-me-nots didn’t do so well, but every­thing else is thriv­ing. It’s been hot & dry so Kerry is water­ing every day, includ­ing the milk­weed & crab­grass border.

After