About

A photo of me working in my shade garden.

Here’s a dorky photo of me getting ready to help break down this giant Blue Atlas Cedar limb that fell during a storm.

A three-ring binder containing plant tags

This binder served me well but it was time to upgrade.

Welcome to My Shade Garden

In 2006 my husband John and I bought an old house on a big, treed lot in the shady Seattle suburb of Lake Forest Park.

And I got bit by the gardening bug. That first year I quickly discovered that any plant requiring full sun was doomed in our garden. Which is kinda ok – I’ve found my niche, right?

Well in 2019 things changed a bit when builders cleared the south easement and vacant lot behind us to make way for a new home. It was sad in some ways, but good in others – suddenly we had a lot more light. I’ve actually been playing with full sun plants along the easement, a few of which seem to be thriving! But we still have 11 large conifers on our half acre lot (and I’ve planted more!) so we’re still part sun at best. Maybe some day in the future we’ll move to a sunny location and I can plant the fruit trees I’ve always dreamed of. But the grass (or moss) is always greener isn’t it?

What is this website?

  1. A blog about my garden
    I am a hobbyist that has learned a thing or two about gardening over time. But I’m still always learning and get I excited when I discover something new or figure out a process that helps me be a better gardener. And I think it’s nice to share these things, so I do!
  2. A inventory of my plants
    For about a decade I dutifully collected nursery tags in an ugly white big binder until it was bursting at the seams. So in lieu of binder proliferation, I decided to build this website. And I figured because it’s a website, why not add a navel-gazey blog? Maybe include some details about our property and its microclimates? Most importantly, this will hopefully replace that old-school binder with clean, expandable repository of data that is sortable and searchable. Check it out!
  3. A resource for shade gardening, centered in the maritime Pacific Northwest
    This site is dedicated to shade gardening (with a splash of indoor plants). Although you can find information about shade gardening on many sites, there seem to be few (or none) dedicated to it. So here I am, I’m putting my virtual stake in the ground. I figured if some of the information I’ve collected over the years could help other folks with the shady bits of their gardens, why not put it out there?

If you’ve read this far I’m impressed! If you’d like to read even more, sign up for my newsletter below. I promise it will be less about me and more about plants! Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

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