One Bed, Two Exposures Beautifully Blended

Full sun and full shade in the same space isn’t a problem with this foolproof design

rarely do prominent gardens descend into one exposure category . Most bed get a mix of Dominicus and shade and everything in between . If you ’re like many gardeners , when you have a young garden to landscape painting , you go to the nursery , fill up your handcart with whatever excites you , then arrive home having no thought how to make sense of it all . This approach will certainly get your garden implant , but the raw layer could look like a chaotic mishmash . So how do you make a garden depend co-ordinated when you need to use plant life that have extremely wide-ranging sun essential ? In the backyard of her home in Knoxville , Tennessee , Faye Beck has clear this pattern dilemma .

A year after moving into her house , Faye identified a spot in the backyard that would be consummate for a garden . But thespace , which abut a large tree diagram personal credit line , stretched from full nicety into full Lord’s Day . To control that this declamatory garden did n’t terminate up look like two different bed , she divide the space down the sun / shade telephone circuit , filled only one side with plants , then discover “ twins ” for the other side . The resolution is a attractively varied yet consistent garden .

Dividing the Space Simplifies Plant Selection

There ’s no sense in venture that a bottom with a mixed exposure is homogenous . Those who attempt to use the same plant throughout the entire garden often find that their excerpt are never rightfully happy . The full - sun plants in shadier areas struggle to size up and rarely bloom well , and the full - shade works forced into a sunnier spot burn and sometimes peter out whole .

alternatively of fighting this losing battle , Faye split her potential bed place , separating the full - sun section from the full - shade incision . To help her identify the line of exposure , she watched the place at different times of day and check where the sun / shade line was from sunrise to sunset . This exposure will , of course , modify depending on the fourth dimension of year , but ideally , you should monitor the country and make the exposure - line conclusion at the height of the growing time of year .

commemorate that this line is just an estimate . you could move the sunlight and shade boundary lines back by a few feet to make the middle reason bigger and to work up in allowances for seasonal changes . Faye installed a gravel pathway down the exposure line in her garden , which clearly defined the boundary and also permit access into the middle of the heavy bed . Dividing the space also eliminates the area of the garden that receives both sun and shade . Not having to deal out with the fond - sun component part of the garden made Faye ’s plant life choices readable . Some people retrieve this “ gray ” area to be the trickiest spot to find plant for because plants generally favor either a little more Dominicus or a little more nicety — and there normally is n’t a partial - sun or partial - shade section of the glasshouse to make shopping leisurely . Consider , for example , oakleaf hydrangea ( Hydrangea quercifolia , USDA Hardiness Zones 5–9 ): Most computer address books lean this plant as a lover of sun to partial shade , but if you give it a picayune too much sun , the foliage will burn . The only room to get this “ no - plant’s - landed estate ” filled in is by experimenting and by accepting the fact that some plants will die and some will want to be moved . remove that troublesome space out of the equation take a shit things much easier .

Make the Garden Cohesive by Finding Sun or Shade “Twins”

After divide the possible garden outer space , you ’ll be leave with two beds : one principally in Sunday and one primarily in shade . This is where the challenge arises — it ’s easy to make a sun layer and a tincture layer , but how do you make the area a cohesive whole ? To solve this trouble , Faye pick out one side and planted all of it . look only for plants in one exposure category at a metre was square and wide-eyed . Faye select to plant the full - refinement section first because she had gross ton of shade plant look to find a new home after her move .

With one side of the bed plant , Faye tackled the other side . To make the two halves of the garden look like they belonged together , she need to find “ twins ” for the opposite side . To do this , she pick out a plant from the shade layer and identify one of its prominent feature ( its semblance , texture , or form ) ; she then found a full - sun plant life that also possessed that feature . ‘ Annabelle ’ smooth hydrangea ( Hydrangea arborescens‘Annabelle ’ , Zones 4–9 ) , for example , has flossy blanched flower in the shade , so Faye chose the similarly fluffy white flowers of wanderer peak ( Cleome hasslerianacv . , yearly ) to be the hydrangea ’s full - sun twin . And the retentive fronds of the shade - loving cap lady fern ( Athyrium filix - femina‘Vernoniae Cristatum ’ , Zones 4–9 ) have a fine grain , similar to the acuate foliage of the sun - loving Arkansas spicy maven ( Amsonia hubrichtii , zona 5–8 ) .

Your garden ’s unplanted side will finally start to fill up . Not every plant involve a similitude , but receive matches for roughly half of your flora is something to strive for . Because each side of the garden will belike be a different size of it , you may find yourself with redundant room . At this item , you may fulfill in the blank spaces with any plants you pick out . The two side of the bed will still look cohesive , and everyone will assume that it was a happy fortuity . It ’s up to you whether you let them in on the real chronicle .

Get a Unified Look Despite a Varied Exposure

It seems like an inconceivable feat : make a bed that attend cohesive despite stretching from full sunshine to full shade . But this challenge is an unfortunate realism for many gardener . How can there be menstruum in a garden that has plants that need 10 hours of bright light source as well as those that will burn if they get only two hours of Dominicus ? To get the seam of your dreams , you ’ll necessitate to find vulnerability “ Twin Falls . ” These are plants that divvy up a exchangeable , prominent trait ( like a vivacious flower coloring ) but that thrive in different exposures . The twins do not need to be mirror images of each other nor be establish like a shot next to one another . Here are a few illustration of exposure twins set up in Faye Beck ’s garden . Their relationship is elusive , yet their bearing give the seam undeniable cohesion .

Connecting the sides

Color

A.‘Victoria’ mealycup sage(Salvia farinacea‘Victoria’, Zones 8–11)

B.Bigleaf hydrangea(Hydrangea macrophyllacv., Zones 6–9)

Texture

C.‘Shasta’ doublefileviburnum(Viburnum plicatumf.tomentosum‘Shasta’, Zones 4–8)

D.Cardinal flower(Lobelia cardinalis,Zones 2–8)

make

E.‘Jade Princess’ millet(Pennisetum glaucum‘Jade Princess’, annual)

F.‘Aureola’ Japanese forest grass(Hakonechloa macra‘Aureola’, Zones 5–9)

How Light canAffect Color

If color is the attributethat you need to use to retrieve a similitude for the other exposure side of the bed , you call for to be cognisant of a few thing . Just as paint colors on the wall of your abode can attend unlike depending on the amount of sunshine pullulate through the window , people of color in the garden can appear more or less saturated depending on how much light hits them . Here are a few thing to keep in thinker before take colorful flora :

Moving plant temporarily out of their comfort zone is a good musical theme

If you are selecting a sun - loving , red - leaved plant life at the greenhouse , take it to a cheery topographic point and then to a shadowy location to get an idea of what it will look like in recent good afternoon or evening light . You may be surprised to find that some plant look red-hot garden pink in down in the mouth light source , and that may strike your plant selection .

Certain colors can wash out or burn off too brilliantly

The classic examples of wash off - out colors are white ( which can cauterise your retina in the Dominicus ) and pinkish ( which misplace its brilliance in bright position ) . Pale yellow is often a better choice for getting “ the look ” of white in the sun , and Battle of Magenta washes out to pink in brilliant twinkle .

Danielle Sherry is the elderly editor , who has mirthfully chat Faye Beck and her gardens several time — and , each sentence , sees something she has never experience before .

Photos : Danielle Sherry ; Michelle Gervais . example : Elara Tanguy

To identify many of the works shown in this clause , visitFineGardening.com/extras .

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Exposure “twins” don’t need to be side by side.The flowers of the spider flower in the foreground make it look like the sun-loving little cousin of the smooth hydrangea in the shady background. Repeating specific colors and textures throughout the garden gives it a cohesive appearance.