Along the front sidewalk, next to the house is a narrow strip that is mostly shade. We tried a few different things in this bed, impatiens, new guinea impatience and corral bells, nothing did very well. In the end we planted optical grass in a pot, a mini hosta, 3 astilbes close together and moved the corral bell to the end where the Japanese Painted Fern is. The red switch grass that we had added earlier was replaced with a potted red lace leaf Japanese Maple that was recovered from the back yard.
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| My mother-in-law gave me this mini host after I admired it so much. She did not remember the name so I have no idea. I love the bright green leaves and so do the slugs. It was planted late in 2009 and the slug ate it down to the ground, luckily it came back. |
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| Optical grass in the pot. |
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| I believe the Astilbe are 'Fanal'. I save tags and found tags for 'Fanal' and 'Montgomery'. They are both reds, close in size although 'Montgomery' is slightly larger. I now keep a garden log so I know exactly what is where. A third astilbe was added to the two above in 2010. Now the three have filled out nicely. |
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| Its a little hard to see the red switch grass that was planted about 2006. This little grouping at the end gets a few hours of direct sun but not enough for the switch grass to do well (what was I thinking) so out it came. The coral bell or heurchera is 'Palace Purple' and seems very happy here. |
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| This is a Red Lace Leaf Japanese Maple 'Tamukeyama' recovered from the back yard. It was purchased in the fall of 2008 when my youngest left for college. A consolation gift to myself. It was 4 ft tall at that time and planted in late fall with a heavy mulching to over winter. In the spring (2009) it was full of buds ready to leaf out and then the rain started. It was a very cold and wet spring and I neglected to pull back the winter mulch. To much rain, to much mulch, the buds never opened. The stem was greenish, but the whole top was dead so we cut the top off and waited. It recovered but my lovely 4 ft. tree is now about 20 inches tall. Last year 2010 it was dug up, potted and tucked it with the Japanese Painted Fern and Palace Purple Coral Bell. |
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| The Japanese Painted Fern is special to me. I bought this fern about 11 years ago. Shortly after it was purchased we ended up moving. Since it was still in the pot, the fern moved with us. Then 4 years later when we moved to this house, we dug it up and here it is. |
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| The narrow bed strip. |
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| My lovely fern and little maple. |
