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[SHADEGARDENS] Intro

Hey all, I kind of stumbled across this list and decided to join up.
Seeing how I ought to write a short bit about me, what I have, where I am,
here goes:

I haven't done a whole lot of gardening in the past.  Growing up in upstate
New York, my family had a bit of a vegetable garden, but nothing fancy.  It
was pretty much clay, though the big corn field across the road seemed to
do okay.  Since then I'd lived in apartments and such until last summer.

When I moved down here to Atlanta in '96 I was amazed at how green
everything was and for how long it stayed green.  The apartment complex I
was in would always have lots and lots of flowers, changing them out every
couple of months.  When I bought my house last summer, I put a couple
sun-lovers down at the end of the driveway, but pretty much ignored the
shady "island" at the front of the house and the woods behind.  With this
being my first spring, I've been bitten by the gardening bug, and want to
really get things going.  I've been buying books and magazines like there
was no tomorrow -- doing my best to learn all I can from other people's
experiences and use that to help get a good start.

My plans for this year are to put in some good shade-loving plants in the
island in front of the house (a couple mature oaks and a couple mature
pines plus a couple smaller trees -- trunk diameters ranging from 6 to 24
inches) and do something in the woods behind the house.  I don't have a
back yard to speak of -- I really just have a deck and then the woods
(mature trees of all sorts).  There are three or four azaleas growing out
there and some ferns, but the rest are trees, saplings, and general
underbrush.  I hope to clear things out a bit, partly to create a better
environment for the mature trees, and partly to make a bit of a
shade-garden path down to the creek.

This creek also forms a ravine along my driveway approx 30ft deep and in
deep shade.  I'm hoping to clear it out a little bit and put in a nice
deep-shade groundcover plus some specimin plants.  My total property size
is about 0.6 acre, roughly half of which is woods.

I'm hoping this season will be a lot of fun.  I plan to put out a LOT of
plants this spring, mostly annuals, but also some perennials.  (I figure I
can be more impulsive with the annuals)  I have four trays of seeds started
and am fixing to start a couple more trays.  Some of them are sun-lovers
(for the end of the driveway), but most of them are shade plants
(impatiens, coleus,  periwinkle, salvia).  Yeah, the salvia's borderline,
but it'll also go with the petunias at the end of the driveway.  Oh, I also
got a bunch of cheap caladium bulbs at Lowe's and am waiting until I create
the beds before I plant them.

In addition to the seeds, I'm also working on putting in a drip & soaker
hose irrigation system so I don't have to spend so much time carrying water
around.  I have the longest and most "difficult" stretches of distribution
pipe laid, and expect to finish with the soaker hoses and drip emitters
sometime this week.

That's about it I guess.  I'm certainly interested in sun-loving plants and
I love lots of flowers and have some full-sun spots at my house, but most
of my property is partial to deep shade.  That's part of what cinched it
when I bought this house -- many developments around here are clear-cut --
nothing but pavement, houses, and grass.  Here I can touch a 30" diameter
oak tree from my deck.

Hope ya'll are keeping warm!

-- Lew Jansen
Atlanta, GA
Zone 7a/b (borderline)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Lew Jansen
 lewj@mindspring.com
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