This is the patch of European ginger I suddenly realized weren't weeds but ginger. I think you can click on this picture and enlarge it. It's been spreading north, so I didn't expect to see it jump the sidewalk and start heading south! I'm not sure this is exactly where I want it, so I might try digging it up and moving it. Which will probably kill it immediately... And then--well, I don't know what I'll do then. It's a couple of feet from the sidewalk, rather farther than I want the vinca to be, but I'm not sure I can coax any grass to grow there, even grass for shade. I suppose I could give it a try (it's just on the edge of where it gets some sun during the day).
The patch of ginger in the top lefthand corner here is the original patch. Alll the rest in this picture is volunteers! If you click on this to enlarge it, you can even see a few tiny leaves growing on the other side of the wood edging. In fact, I'm thinking of trying to restrain it a bit so the brunnera won't get choked out. I'm so glad I got a picture while it's blooming--its other name is false forget-me-not. That's Jack Frost on the right and Looking Glass on the left, which I really, really, really like. I mean, those leaves are *silver* and look fantastic all the time, but particularly nice with their blue spring flowers, and shining out of the summer shade. Jack Frost has green veining, and it's pretty, but not as spectacular as Looking Glass.
The columbine in the center of the picture, btw, is also a volunteer. Off to the far right is a white astilbe that I moved last year because it was getting too much sun. I'm delighted to see it survived the winter, so we'll see what it does over the summer.
This is the vinca, swallowing everything in a wave of green. It's hard to complain about it, with its neat pointed oval dark green leaves, evergreen habit, ease of propagation (can't get much easier than cutting off a piece and sticking it in the ground), and obvious desire to please, and this year it's blooming its pretty head off. It does have a tendency to overwhelm other plants, though--you notice the anemic-looking lady fern in the very center (again, you have to click and get the bigger version). I wish I could grow ferns. For one thing, I'd like some height back there against the bole of the tree. For another, I'd love to grown hay-scented ferns. Please note how the vinca has spilled over the wooden edging and is headed east toward the street; I suppose it will stop once it hits the asphalt, but I'm not sure I'd bet money on it. Interestingly enough, I haven't found any volunteer patches of vinca; apparently it plans to take over the world in a slow, steady wave, rather than leap-frogging like the ginger and sweet woodruff.
I'm looking for another shade adapted ground cover, partly to add some variety to the vinca/ginger duet, and partly because I'm going to add another crescent to the shade garden and would like something different to put in there. NOT pachysandra; I don't like it and it doesn't like me. (I wonder if I could get a white daylily to grow back there by the tree?) What I desperately want is leptinella squalida, otherwise known as brass buttons. They look like the tiniest little feathery ferns you ever saw, exactly the texture I want, but it's not a shade plant. Dwarf goatsbeard might work, and so might astilbe chinensis pumila, though the goatsbeard has the more delicate foliage. Also it flowers white, and I'm trying to keep the color scheme here restricted to green, white, and silver; the astilbe flowers pink. Oh. I just found a version that flowers white called Diamonds and Pearls. Apparently no one in the US grows it, but it's nice to know at least that it exists.
Here comes the rain...
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