Rain gardening

We hear a lot about rain gardens—which are all well and good—but not having a rain garden, I currently limit myself to rain gardening.

The performance of various gardening tasks under light and pleasant precipitation works very well for me. In fact, given the difficult dry shade conditions I have throughout much of the GWI property, it makes things a lot easier. Today I planted some shade perennials I’d previously overlooked—mainly because they have brief spring bloom periods—in one of my front beds. Because the ground was nice and wet, not just from today’s rain but also from a good soaking last night, my trowel went in like butter. All I had to do was the usual lopping of various hard roots running throughout the planting area. God knows which tree they’re coming from.

So good luck, brunnera, polygonatum, and bergenia (actually the second bergenia I’ve planted here). Long may it rain; you’ll need every drop to get established in these difficult conditions.

In the meantime, the sunnier parts of the garden are under the reign of the rudbeckia triumverate: lancianata, triloba, and hirta. “David’s Lavender” phlox (truly mildew free!) is looking fabulous, as are the speciosums.



One disappointment this week was that I truly could not find a “knee-level” shot for the current Gardening Gone Wild photo contest. Nothing seemed to work, so I am illustrating this post with a couple of the ideas I didn’t pursue.