Re: What is shade?

It used to be funny when a neigbour would be planting in her "sunny
bed" which adjoined my "shady bed".  It's all relative, I guess.

I think the best way to find out if you have a shady garden is to go
to someplace like Arizona in midwinter.  The sky will be brilliant
blue from horizon to horizon, and there will be more sunshine than
most places get in midsummer.  Then go home and stand in your garden
where I bet you can't ever see a horizon because there are all those
trees blocking it.  I think anyplace with trees would need to be
classed as "part-shade".

 In midwinter, the sun, which usually is hiding well below the tops
of tall evergreen trees, crosses the treeless area where the street
is, and for almost an hour shines onto a few areas of my yard.  I
have those areas marked on my garden map so I can plant things like
crocus that bloom midwinter but need sun to open their flowers.

I think I read somewhere that great areas of North America are
becoming shady because of all the trees that have been planted in the
subdivisions that replaced the farms that were wrested from the
forest a couple of centuries ago.

--
Diane Whitehead  Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
maritime zone 8
cool mediterranean climate (dry summer, rainy winter - 68 cm annually)
sandy soil

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