{"id":3607,"date":"2022-02-07T09:03:40","date_gmt":"2022-02-07T17:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=3607"},"modified":"2022-02-07T09:03:40","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T17:03:40","slug":"shady-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/shady-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"Shady Characters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novice gardeners\u2014and even some experienced ones\u2014often curse the shade that looms over their beds, borders and other growing spaces.\u00a0 One of the immutable facts of gardening life is that if you want armloads of roses or bushels of tomatoes, you need lots of sunshine.<\/p>\n

Given that reality, you have two choices.\u00a0 Either you can move to a place with optimal sunshine, or you can come to terms with shade.\u00a0 With the time and expense involved in moving, it\u2019s probably better to come to terms with shade and use it as an opportunity to broaden your horticultural horizons.\u00a0 You can create all kinds of beauty in less-than-sunny conditions with the right plants.\u00a0 It is even possible to work this miracle under trees.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to sacrifice flowers either, though those flowers are usually not as big and flashy as peonies or gladioli.<\/p>\n

I have plenty of shade and I fill the spaces with all kinds of plants.\u00a0 I especially like a shade-loving hardy geranium that is known botanically as Geranium phaeum, and known less optimistically as \u201cthe mourning widow\u201d, or \u201cdusky geranium\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMourning widow\u201d sounds like something out of Victorian funerary art, but it is simply descriptive of the species\u2019 dark maroon to near-black flowers.\u00a0 Each one has five petals, just like the individual flowers of a windowbox geranium or pelargonium.\u00a0 As with other hardy geraniums, the blossoms appear singly, rather than in cluster form.<\/p>\n

I first got acquainted with Geranium phaeum when I saw it growing in the garden of a friend who is a professional gardener.\u00a0 His garden is like a miniature botanical institution, with all kinds of interesting species, but I was very taken with his healthy clumps of \u2018Samobor\u2019.\u00a0 Like most phaeums, the plants stand up to 24 inches tall and perhaps 12 inches wide.\u00a0 The nodding flowers at the tops of the stalks are dark, with slightly reflexed petals and a white \u201ceye\u201d in the center of each bloom.\u00a0 \u2018Samobor\u2019s late spring flowers are lovely, but its best features are the leaves, which bear distinctive, pointed lobes.\u00a0 To add to the show, each leaf is also marked with a wide ring of dramatic purple-black blotches.<\/p>\n

\u2018Samobor\u2019, a naturally occurring variant of the phaeum species, was discovered over two decades ago growing at an English nursery.\u00a0 Fittingly for a member of a species native to Croatia and other locations in Eurasia, it was named after a Croatian town.\u00a0 In this country, the variety was introduced into commerce by the late lamented Heronswood Nursery of Kitsap, Washington.\u00a0 Though not as wildly popular as sun-loving hardy geraniums like \u2018Rozanne\u2019, \u2018Samobor\u2019 has acquired a following of its own.<\/p>\n

But \u2018Samobor\u2019 is only the beginning.\u00a0 A check of the online specialty plant marketplace reveals a host of mourning widow varieties with flowers in many shades of mourning dress.\u00a0Some feature leaf blotches, like those of \u2018Samobor\u2019, while others bear lighter or darker lobed green leaves.<\/p>\n

Langthorn\u2019s\u2019 Blue\u2019 is enchanting, with maroon leaf splotches and reflexed blue-purple flowers suffused with white.\u00a0 \u2018Album\u2019\u2014definitely not in mourning–looks positively cheerful, with pure white flowers and somewhat marked foliage.\u00a0 \u2018Alec\u2019s Pink\u2019, another English variety, sports blooms of reddish purple, with contrasting veins and deeply dissected foliage.\u00a0 German breeders have brought forth the strong-sounding \u2018Walkure\u2019, which charms the eye with the white overtones on its purplish blooms. \u2018Lavender Pinwheel\u2019 looks just the way it sounds, with crinkled pinwheel petals and maroon-blotched foliage. \u2018Merry Widow\u2019 is among the most beautiful of the phaeum varieties, with lavender petals that darken to form a purple ring at the center of each flower.<\/p>\n

If Geranium phaeum works in your shade garden and you have the space, try growing clumps of several varieties to make the most of the contrast in foliage textures and colors.<\/p>\n

Encourage\u00a0mourning widows to thrive by providing them with partial\u2014or even less than partial–shade and consistently moist soil.\u00a0 Moisture is most important when they are establishing themselves.\u00a0 Thereafter, the plants can tolerate some drought, not to mention slugs and deer.\u00a0 No matter what the conditions, I am inclined to help Mother Nature with a good blanket of mulch.\u00a0 Like all cranesbills, the phaeum varieties develop seedheads that resemble long-beaked birds. Those birds will eventually spit seeds some distance, so be on the lookout for baby mourning widows\u2014sometimes in unexpected places.<\/p>\n

Mourning widow is an overly grim nickname for a very useful group of perennial plants.\u00a0 The flowers last for a time, but the foliage carries the plants handily and gracefully through the entire growing season.\u00a0 Find a good selection at Digging Dog Nursery, 31101 Middle Ridge Rd., Albion, CA 95410, (707) 937-1130, www.diggingdog.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Another excellent source is Geraniaceae, 122 Hillcrest Ave., Kentfield, CA 94904, (415) 461-4168, geraniaceae.com.<\/p>\n

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Novice gardeners\u2014and even some experienced ones\u2014often curse the shade that looms over their beds, borders and other growing spaces.\u00a0 One of the immutable facts of gardening life is that if you want armloads of roses or bushels of tomatoes, you need lots of sunshine. Given that reality, you have two choices.\u00a0 Either you can move … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[2658,1350,1193,589,174,2657,2656,2522],"class_list":["post-3607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-dusky-geranium","tag-geraniaceae-family","tag-geranium-phaeum","tag-groundcovers","tag-hardy-geraniums","tag-mourning-widow-geranium","tag-samobor","tag-shade-groundcovers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3609,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607\/revisions\/3609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}