New shade bed

A few months ago, I created a Pinterest board devoted to plants for a shady, wet spot. On Saturday, the Pinterest board came to life as we dug and planted a new shade bed on the north side of the garage, a consistently shady and moist area. I love it when Pinterest boards come to fruition!

Step 1: Plants! Mr. H. and I went to the Southeast Wisconsin Master Gardeners Plant Sale at State Fair Park on Saturday. Holy hostas, it was amazing! I had received a list of plants available at the sale in advance and was able to compare it against the Pinterest board. Hostas, check. Pulmonaria, check. Astilbe, check. Determining that the plant sale was a go, Mr. H. and I left home pretty early (for a Saturday) and made it to the sale just before 8 am. We waited in line for a few minutes until the volunteers opened the gates. Foot traffic snaked around the sale area in one-way-only fashion, much like the farmers market in Madison. The plants were organized in alphabetic order by scientific name, though there were a few dedicated areas for specific things, like irises and daylilies and hostas.

It was very crowded. Unless you know what you want, this is not the plant sale for you - decidedly not a good situation for hesitators or window shoppers. Because I knew the scientific names of the plants rather than the common names (pulmonaria instead of lungwort, for example), it was a pretty quick trip for us. I snatched 2 astilbe right away and also found 3 pulmonaria. Mr. H. was on hosta patrol and nabbed 7 different varieties. A gentleman working the hosta zone recommended Golden Tiara, hosta #8. We tucked our 13 plants into the sled that served as a shopping cart and made our way out to pay. $58! What a deal. We chuckled all the way back home, marveling at our good fortune. (However, the sound of plastic sleds grating against paved walkways? Shudder.) 

The haul. We were very pleased.

Step 2: Preparing the bed. This was the worst step. Obviously. Mr. H. outlined the grassy section of the yard last weekend using round edgers from Menards. (I couldn't help - I was volunteering all day.) A few weeks ago, we had anchored heavy black plastic over the future shade bed to kill off the grass. Satuday's task: dig it out. It was a mess, but not an awful mess. (It's funny how my mess scale has evolved since I've become a homeowner.) Because the soil was so very wet and full of clay, we removed the soil to about a foot down, piled it on heavy plastic on the grass, then mixed the soil, bucket by bucket, with peat moss and compost before adding the amended dirt back to the bed.

Quite possibly the worst slip-n-slide ever.

I wish we had a garden-scale KitchenAid stand mixer.

The bed is 4' wide in spots and around 20' long.

It was tiring work. Lucy, of course, loved being outside with us all day and especially enjoyed taking naps in the dirt zone. Predictable.

Step 3: Welcoming the plants to their permanent home. We arranged the plants, still in their pots, and reconfigured placement a few times. Mr. H's suggestion of grouping the 3 lungworts together instead of intermingling them with the astilbe was a good one. (I tend to alternate, but that can look so matchy-matchy, which I hate. Thank you, Mr. H!) It was then very easy to plant in the soft, newly amended soil. 

Lucy looks on her short-lived napping zone with despair over its reincarnation.

There's a lot of leftover soil which we unceremoniously added to the growing dirt pile in back that we will have to deal with later. I swept the pavers. We watered everything. And then we sat down on the patio to admire our work while drinking beer.

Plants, nestled and labeled!

I need to make a chart of all of the plants and their locations so we don't forget what is where, but doesn't it look great? Shade garden! I will add some forget-me-not seeds directly under the lilac, and we want to move a few brunnera to this spot too, but it is mostly done. We'll probably add mulch eventually as well. Oh, and there's the rain diffuser to prevent a trench by the garage as there are no rain gutters on the structure. (As I said, mostly done.)