LouLife

Illustrations by Annette Cable

How do you go about creating a shade garden?

“Shade gardens are all about creating a calm, cool, green retreat from the heat of the summer,” says landscape designer Suzette White, owner of Nature By Design in LaGrange. “For structure, you need large shade trees, smaller understory trees and bushes. Then use ground covers and shade-loving perennials to make the garden more intimate.”

Before you plant, take advantage of shade cast by buildings or even trees in your neighbor’s yard. “A shade garden can withstand some morning sun peeking in, but you have to protect it from the hot western sun in the afternoon,” White says. Another must is soil amendment, because shade-loving plants prefer loam. “Take a cue from Mother Nature by grinding up your fall leaves and putting them on top of your shade garden in winter,” she advises. “They’ll protect your plants and add organic content to the soil.”  

For shade trees, White’s top picks include maples, oaks, yellowwoods, tulip poplars (Kentucky’s official state tree), sweet gums and magnolias. For the understory she suggests serviceberry, redbud and dogwood. Tall shrubs such as witch hazel and semi-evergreen viburnums (“Willowwood,” “Leatherleaf,” “Allegheny”) can add both shade and privacy. “Think of them as walls,” she says. Deciduous bushes such as Carolina allspice, oakleaf hydrangea, “Exbury” azaleas and fothergilla can add spring or fall color and winter interest. And for evergreen shrubs, dwarf boxwoods such as “Green Mountain,” “Little Gem” and “Green Velvet” top her list, because “the deer leave them alone and they only get 30 to 36 inches tall so don’t require lots of pruning.”

For ground covers, stay away from ivy and bishop’s weed, which “can be very pushy in beds and difficult to get rid of,” White notes. “Much better are lamium, wild ginger, sweet woodruff, pachysandra and liriope. Pachysandra and liriope are especially nice, because they stay green most of the winter.”

For color, go with woodland perennials – jack-in-the-pulpit, Solomon’s seal, Virginia bluebells, wild phlox, May apples, hardy cyclamen and wild ageratum – and shade-loving “grandmother” plants such as hostas, ferns, cardinal flower, bleeding heart, columbine, astilbe, Jacob’s ladder, naked ladies and bergenia. “Shade gardens are more spring-color-oriented than regular gardens. Once the spring blooms fade, you have to rely on plants with different shades of green, different heights and different textures to keep it interesting,” she explains. “There are some annuals that do well in shade — impatiens, begonias and coleus — but the question is, do you really want a lot of color in a shade garden? Color is vibrant and exciting and shade gardens are usually soothing. In fact, I’m getting more requests for green and white gardens. People like their simplicity and they glow so beautifully in the moonlight at night.”

The final touch White recommends for every shade garden: a bench or a table and chairs “to pull you in.”

What are some of the best hybrid shrubs for Louisville’s soil conditions and climate?

“I often recomm/files/storyimages/hybrids of some of the hardy old standbys, such as weigela, hydrangeas and lilacs,” says Peggy Thieneman, owner of Thieneman Greenhouses in Hurstbourne Acres. “What you have to remember, though, is that hybridization can sometimes make plants lose their hardiness, depending on what the hybridizer is looking for. Some are bred for specific characteristics such as color, size or scent.” One of her personal picks is “Midnight Wine” weigela. “It only gets about a foot tall and has dark metallic burgundy foliage and deep pink flowers in the spring, making it good for edgings in the front of the border,” she says. “It’s a nice replacement for pygmy crimson barberries without all the nasty prickles.” Also recommended: “Wine & Roses” weigela, a taller, wine-leafed variety bearing rosy-pink flowers.

For hydrangeas, “Limelight” is a favorite. “It has very pale, creamy, greenish-white flowers that grow in a tight conical shape, similar to the flowers of oak leaf hydrangeas, only smaller,” Thieneman says. “They’re wonderful cut or dried. I used them in my daughter’s wedding last year.”

For lilacs, she suggests several hybrids specifically for their scent and neat growth habits, including “Josee,” “Lilac Sunday” and “Maiden’s Blush.” Two other shrubs she recommends specifically for their nose appeal are Abelia mosanensis, a five-to-six-foot shrub bearing wonderfully fragrant pink and white blooms in the spring, and philadelphus “Innocence,” a six-to-eight-foot mock orange that blooms at the /files/storyimages/of May and “is the most fragrant of all,” Thieneman says.

Known for its flaming scarlet color in fall, winged euonymus (aka burning bush) is now considered an invasive weed throughout most of the U.S. For fall color, Thieneman suggests instead physocarpus (ninebark) and itea (sweetspire). Her ninebark picks include “Diablo” (dark purple leaves in summer and burgundy-red in autumn), “Coppertina” (copper in spring and rich red in summer) and “Dart’s Gold” (chartreuse in spring and yellow and bronzed red in autumn). All three also have peeling bark that adds winter interest, she notes. Cream of the hybrid itea crop is “Little Henry,” which grows only two-to-three-feet tall, has good-smelling white flowers in mid-June, when many flowering shrubs are through for the year, and turns brilliant red in autumn.

Berries are another way to add color to the garden during fall and winter. Thieneman’s prize berry picks: “Early Amethyst” callicarpa (beautyberry), featuring bright purple berries in the fall, and “Sparkleberry” holly, a deciduous holly with a long-lasting display of bright red berries. “There’s some planted along I-64 by Oxmoor and it’s a showstopper every winter,” she says.

The secret behind her green thumb: “Dig a $100 hole for a $10 plant,” she advises, “and am/files/storyimages/your soil if you can. You can’t grow anything successfully in the soil around most new houses these days.”

What are some good materials to use for walks and garden paths?

When creating paths and walks, says landscape designer Ed Nelson of Eden Shale Nursery in Fern Creek, he considers three things: the architectural style of the home, the personal style of the homeowner and the surroundings. “Is the lot wooded or open? Are the plantings controlled or are they more natural? Is the subdivision formal or is the home out in the country?” he asks.

For wooded lots and shade, perennial or water gardens, simple paths can be created from mulch. “Use either pine straw or crushed pine bark,” he advises. “Cypress and cedar don’t look great and are too hard to walk on.” Another alternative: pea gravel.

Both gravel and mulch require some type of edging and shouldn’t be applied too deeply (two inches or less) over heavy-grade landscape fabric, he advises. “The biggest problem with mulch is that you have to keep adding as it decomposes. With pea gravel, if you have a lot of children, you could /files/storyimages/up with gravel all over the yard.”

Stone, either natural or man-made, is another option. “Bluestone and flagstone are excellent and can be formal or informal, depending on whether the stone is cut or naturally quarried,” Nelson says. “One of my favorites is plumwood flagstone, because of its hint of burgundy.” In areas where slipperiness could be a problem, use stones with gritty surfaces — sandstone, limestone and bluestone. “Stay away from anything polished and don’t use sealants,” he advises.

Most stone walkways require a gravel base to prevent sinking as well as sand for leveling.  Fill gaps between the stones with trap grit or soil. “Soil allows you to plant low-growing ground covers, such as wooly, lemon or elfin thyme and dragon’s blood sedum, between the stones,” he says. “Thyme is especially nice, because it releases an aroma when you walk on it.” With trap-grit filler, he suggests a fabric landscape barrier to help prevent weeds.

Create an easy, natural-looking path by setting stone directly on the turf. “You don’t need a base at all and you can just mow over it, although you will probably have to re-level at some point,” he notes.

What are the best types of natural stone and construction techniques for building a backyard wall?

Paul Crane, owner of Crane Landscaping and The Stone Store on Old LaGrange Road, looks at several factors before designing a stone wall. “First and foremost, we want to create a wall that matches the home’s architectural style,” he says. “In an informal setting, I prefer natural quarried stone, while formal settings call for stones that have been machine split to be uniform in size and shape. Color is also important. Some stones, such as Kentucky or Pennsylvania bluestone and local creek rock, t/files/storyimages/toward grays and blues, while others, such as Western Kentucky sandstone and limestone, come in tan, brown or red.”

Western Kentucky sandstone is a personal favorite because it’s so versatile, he says. “It’s very dense, so it cuts easily and the colors will work with almost anything. Plus it can be used in both formal and informal applications.”

The next question Crane asks is, “Are we retaining earth or will the wall be freestanding?” For retaining walls, dry-stack, rather than mortar, is the way to go. “In this application, dry-stack is less expensive, because you’re only facing one side of the wall,” he explains. “Even do-it-yourselfers can create a small dry-stack retaining wall, as long as they use aggregate (he prefers thumbnail-sized #8 limestone) behind it to lock it in place and help it drain.”

For freestanding walls, dry-stack construction is much more expensive, but “it’s the best way to go if you can afford it,” Crane says, noting that it takes about double the time of a mortared wall. “A freestanding dry-stack wall that has been built correctly lasts a lifetime and you won’t get problems with cracking, although for safety’s sake we usually mortar the capstone in place.” 

Wall height is a major factor in sizing the stones. “Taller walls require larger stones,” he says. “We often use boulders for retaining walls over four feet in height.”