Loudoun County Master Gardeners

Shade Garden                                                                                                                                       Back

Unrelenting sun was once the gold standard for gardeners, but well placed shade with the right plantings enriches our garden canvas.  Shade gardens are cool and soothing with subtle shadings and green foliage of various textures, shapes and proportions.  Click to view our garden layout at Ida Lee:  Shade Garden flyer

Planting Impatiens around Thirsty Tree Roots

The large pine trees in the center of the Shade Garden take up a lot of moisture from the garden soil.  The tree roots also grow close to the surface, which makes it difficult to dig a hole for planting.  If you look closely, you’ll find that some of the impatiens planted in the shade Garden are actually planted in bags of organic soil!  They are the white impatiens in the picture above on the left.  We have experimented with this for several years and it seems to work quite well. 

Here’s how you do it:

(Work in the spot where you want the flowers because the bag of soil is heavy) 

- Cut 7 seven X’s in the top of a bag of soil – space the X’s how you would like the plants arranged.

- Also cut a few small x’s on the bottom of the bag for drainage

- Plant one impatiens flower in each of the holes

- Water the plants directly in each hole

- Cover the bag with any type of mulch you like so it will hide the bag, we used pine needles

- Water as necessary making sure you get in each hole