Shade Garden

I'm loving my shade garden. It has all kinds of native plants: yew tree, maple tree, cherry tree, cyclamen, sword ferns, and lady ferns, with trillium tucked in the back. Every spring and fall when I'm cleaning the gardens, I take all these "weed" types that spring up all over [like weeds!] and put them here.

I love it when the cyclamen blooms appear with the first fall rain signifying summer is over. Well, it's a bit surprising because I always think, SUMMER IS OVER? ALREADY? But they are so pretty interspersed among the dark ferns.

What is special about this shade garden is it took me years to get it to look decent. I must have spent hundreds of dollars on seeds hoping to get shade plants to grow under these trees and nothing would. Finally I thought, Why fight it? Use the native plants! It's finally starting to look nice and filled.

The tiny round cyclamen leaves are just now starting to appear.

They are such pretty leaves. Once they are full grown they are a beautiful heart shape that is so lovely. This is a winter plant which I always find unusual since so much of the garden is dependent on spring-summer weather. The ferns will die back in the winter so my shade garden evolves with the seasons.

Hooray for native plants and not fighting nature!!