Summer garden blues

A narrow shade bed at the entry to the back door

Caladiums and ivy highlight the small shade bed nestled between the deck and the wall

A bucket of torenia hangs on an old gate propped up against the deck wall


As I have noted before, our garden is in major trouble. Not only are the main beds not performing, but neither is the bed that faces our front porch. We had the soil tested in the main beds, and have added the required nutrients. We have also added some compost to the front porch bed. But in the meantime, our formosa lilies are gone, our spider lily is gone, our glorious gingers have failed to produce bracts and flowers, and our red salvia is gone (not to mention all of the spring failures).

In the best of times, we do not have much of a summer garden because we do not have enough sun to grow annuals, with few exceptions. We do get some roses and some cannas, plus some daylily rebloom, and we used to get the above-mentioned blooms that have disappeared.

Our two small shade gardens are at their best in the summer, however, because that is when the caladiums are added to the ivy and ferns. This summer, our 'Royal Standard' hosta bloomed for the first time. In a normal climate, hostas clump like mad and create a mass of blooms. Ours has never clumped or even grown, but it did give us a series of beautiful and fragrant flowers this summer. And our biggest hit this summer is the night-blooming cereus, which currently has a dozen buds.

Structurally, the garden still looks very nice because of the gingers, calla lily leaves, cannas, and night-blooming cereus, but it would be nice to have some flowers again. The 'Black Pear' calla is the most gorgeous I have ever seen. It bloomed once, then proceeded to clump like mad, with no flowers.