While the influence of the sun in gardening may be obvious to most, I had clearly underestimated it in a number of places last summer, especially how it effects the direction in which a plant will grow.
Here are 3 examples.
1)
I prefer to hide the functional aspects of a garden and I planted these daylilies to do just that by covering where the fence and the ground meet. In my mind they were going to mound, as daylilies tend to do, but instead they were clearly reaching for the sun, growing out towards the lake.
If I wanted them to cover up the base of the fence I would have had to plant them slightly behind it to anticipate their forward motion.
2)
At the base of this chain link fence I planted peas and Morning Glories. I knew I would need to help guide and wind them through the fence but I had not really appreciated how much I would be fighting the vines' natural tendency to grow away from the fence and towards the light.
Next time I will plant them on the north side of the fence and use their pull to the south to my advantage.
3)
Once I took note of the lessons above I started looking for other examples around the yard and noticed this shrub whose branches only grow in one direction - towards the lake and the light.
In the retelling it seems obvious, but thinking ahead to how your plants will grow takes practice. Wish me luck, I hope I now have this one licked but sometimes I need to learn things in the garden more than once!
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Sharing with Garden Tuesday
I've dealt with this alot, especially in our partially shaded back yard.
ReplyDeletePam, I am glad to hear that I am not the only who had to learn this first-hand.
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