Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.
Looking down the hill through the gardens on the back side of the house. The ‘Butterfly’ Japanese maple is like a torch.
This is the sequel to the post You Asked for the Long View Part 1 in which I showed you all the gardens along the front side of the house. I wrote that post to satisfy all my readers who have been asking to see the big picture of my garden. I took the photos for both posts using my recently purchased “new iPad”, which has a highly acclaimed camera function. After experimenting with it, I have concluded that the iPad does take decent photos but a lot of the reason they look so good is because the screen resolution on the new iPad is amazing. Once I downloaded the photos to my PC, they didn’t look so fabulous. The new iPad will not be replacing my camera anytime soon.
The view from my dry shade garden across the lawn to my production beds. The gardens on the right were planted in the last two years to hide the neighbor’s hideous chain link fence.
Before we begin the second half of the tour, I want to comment on the odd gardening season. Because the ground never froze this winter and March was so warm, everything started blooming a month early. I kept wondering when this was going to catch up with us, and the answer is now. There is not much blooming in my garden because it all bloomed early and later-flowering plants have gone back to their regular schedule. If you want to see what the gardens looked like when everything bloomed together, view the amazing photographs in Julie’s Carolyn’s Shade Gardens post on her blog Wife, Mother, Gardener.
The production beds at the bottom of the lawn where I grow plants to sell at my nursery, mostly primroses, pulmonarias, and hellebores.
The tour starts at my dry shade garden where we left off in the last post and continues down the hill to my production beds (see two photos above). From there, we turn to the left and loop up behind the house. One route branches off to the right to meander through the woodland garden and the other goes straight up the hill past our deck. It is hard to explain how it all fits together, but I will do my best.
The production beds are behind us, to the left is the water garden, which stays moist most of the year, and ahead is the back side of the house and the deck. The lower entrance to the woodland garden is hidden just ahead on the right.
A closer view walking towards the deck.
We headed off into the woods. This is the upper half of the fully shaded woodland garden. All the paths are covered in white pine needles.
A closer view of the woodland garden: it peaks in early spring but Hosta ‘Sum and Substance’ is making a splash right now.
Still in the woodland but turning the corner to exit out the top entrance.
Standing outside the top entrance and looking back into the woodland.
Looking back from the patio towards the top entrance of the woodland with the yellow and gold garden on the left and the silver and blue garden on the right.
A slight detour to show you the patio. You can see the yellow and gold garden behind the magnolia.
Looking from the patio towards the stone room where we make compost and store firewood. Our garage was the carriage house for an estate, and the compost area was the manure pit for the stables .
We have backtracked to walk up the hill by the deck without detouring into the woodland. The silver and blue garden is on the right and the deck/patio is on the left.
Passing the upper entrance to the woodland.
We call this hosta hill because we used hostas to colonize the eroded slope and get rid of the grass.
The upper half of hosta hill.
Passing the miniature hosta rock garden.
Looking down hosta hill from the top.
Turning towards the carriage house at the top of hosta hill.
Heading back out to the driveway where we started in the first post.
I hope you have enjoyed the “big picture” tour of the gardens on the east side of the house. Stay tuned for a series of posts on all the wonderful gardens I have visited in the last few months.
Carolyn
Nursery Happenings: The nursery is closed until the fall. Thanks for a great spring season!
If you are within visiting distance and would like to receive catalogues and information about customer events, please send your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information.
Facebook: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens has a Facebook page where I post single photos, garden tips, and other information that doesn’t fit into a blog post. You can look at my Facebook page here or click the Like button on my right sidebar here.
Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here.
CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS 