Looking shady

We had an opportunity in spring 2025 to get some free plants preselected for a shade garden. And we had plenty of shade now on the side of our addition. We jumped at the chance and started preparing the plot, using old railroad ties to map out the space. We removed the grass and filled it with compost and mulch.

Here's where the space is in our yard, for context:

The plants arrived in April, which apparently was the "right" time to get them in the ground, so we got to work right away:

We received a bunch of tiny plugs, each well labeled. 

The plants we received (from left to right) were: blue wood sedge, golden ragwort, alumroot, wild geranium, goat's beard, blue-stemmed goldenrod, and cardinal flower.

It even came with a planner that suggested exactly how to lay out the garden based on a few common shapes (rectangle border, circle, etc.), so planting was surprisingly simple. Our trapezoid most closely resembled this long rectangle, so that's what we used as our guide:

They looked so tiny!

Here is the garden again that June, three months later, with everything a little bigger:

By August, the time of year when we usually kill all our plants due to our inability to water them, the garden was still looking happy and healthy. We even had some cardinal flowers!

And then last fall, they still were holding on well into November:

Let's fast forward to 2026. Here is early June, with the golden ragwort in bloom:

And now it's July and we're headed back to cardinal flowers! Here's to keeping our garden alive!