Well, nothing quite so dramatic as my neighbor's house burning down, thank goodness, but my neighbor did take down several trees - about 4 or 5 over three years. Now my shaded woodland garden isn't quite so shaded.

Luckily, nothing drastic has happened. I guess I still have enough shade to keep it a shade garden. I did have to move a few things from our boundary line,which suddenly became full sun, into more shade, but my main shade garden is still okay.

As a matter of fact, I had been planning on planting a dogwood tree on my neighbor's side of the shade garden, to help replace some of the shade, but now I'm not so sure...

I took down 2 trees myself last spring to give my only sunny area even more sun. On one hand I dislike it - I feel so exposed, lol, and am looking for shrubs to replace the trees (they were along the boundary line, and there is a curve in my street so cars coming down the street look straight into my yard at that point). But on the other hand I am enjoying having a vegetable garden and a cutting garden. Can't do that in the shade!

:)
Dee

Oh no! Thank goodness your house didn't burn along with it!!

Nope, all that sun sure ain't what it's cracked up to be. The way my other house was situated most of the yard and patio was in the blazing hot sun, people would come over for BBQs and such and complain about it, it was oppressive at times. My house now has a nice mix of sun and shade, I have mature trees, and that sure is a lot better, both for the gardens and for me. I love lush shade gardens, and one of my patios is surrounded by a lovely (well, I think so...) part-shade bed, while the other patio has part of it surrounded by a sunny bed, part a shade bed. So I really do have a nice mix of both worlds.

A lot of the shade growers may adapt and do fine next season as long as the sun isn't that relentess all-day sun. Sure they'll look cr@ppy this year, but if you can keep them well-watered they'll probably adjust next season as the new growth emerges. You could throw some lightweight shade cloth over the bed as a temporary measure until the cooler (and hopefully wetter) fall weather kicks in.

Sorry I can't offer more in the way of advice what to do in your situation, I've never had such drastic exposure change in such a short period of time.

Good luck!

A lot of folks will not sympathize with you on more sun. Since I have gardens on all four sides of my house, there is diversity. Suggestion, mulch heavily, (at least two to four inches), while your shade plants adapt. You could buy a few used large patio umbrellas for the more sensitive plants. Good luck.

So sorry for your poor little shade-lovers, but that is a problem I would like to have. I have a mostly shady lot. It is the only lot like this on my road. I drive by the neighbor's huge tracts of lawn, drooling over what seems like endless full sun.

I know the previous owners of my house and it used to be TOTALLY wooded - until the widow had thousands of $$ of treework done to take down about half the large trees in the front yard. So most of my sun-loving flower gardens are in the front. This is not exactly what I'd prefer - I feel like I'm in a fishbowl in the front yard, but ya gotta go where the sun is.

Then I had thousands $$ more of tree work done to thin out trees along the sides and a row of trees in the back. Now I have a little more sun and maybe a 10x20 foot spot in back where I have squeezed in some vegetables. Yeah, a veggie garden!

My plan for this fall is to have thousands of $$ more tree work done and have big Norway maples removed and topped in the back. This will open up much more sun in about half the back yard with some dappled shade from remaining trees. I am planning to leave up snags for the birds and grow all sorts of native vines up them. I want to make more gardens and grow lots more stuff! (Can you tell, I am not the least bit obsessed!! :p)

There are so many beautiful shrubs, flowers and veggies that love sun. At least you didn't have to spend thousands of dollars to get some. :)

We lost some trees in an ice storm last January and I moved a lot of my perennials before they even came up because we needed to pull out the stumps with a tractor. The perennials that remain are getting quite a bit of sun. I wish I had moved my painted ferns. They're suffering the most with the heat index over 100 for the last week or so and the lack of rain. I'm afraid to move them in this heat so I just stuck some leafy tree branches in the ground to shade them from the afternoon sun and will try to keep them watered until I get a chance to move them.

Kevin, I was thinking about this thread this morning, and I had to kind of laugh - it falls into the "be careful what you wish for" category, lol.

My neighbor (not the tree-cutting one, the one on the other side) has a very sunny yard - boy, does he love his lawn! - and I really am very divided on this issue. On one hand, I, like terrene, drool over his sun and imagine the garden beds I would build there, but when I walk from my yard over to his, I can literally feel the temperature rise! His yard is so hot!

That where my dilemma comes in. While I would love to be able to grow more sun-lovers, I do so love my shade. My yard (and house) is cooler in the summer, my guests can sit and refresh themselves in my shade gardens, and it just has such a peaceful, refreshing feel to it.

I'm almost glad my other neighbor took down the trees, because I don't think I would take the initiative to do so. Unfortunately, the orientation of my yard is such that to have full sun, I'd have to take the trees down in the front/side yard. Of course, these are the beautiful, three- and four-trunked oaks. The scrubby, non-descript oaks are in the back (northeast) and on the north side of the house, so taking those down wouldn't make much difference anyway.

I would look at your situation as a chance to plant new stuff! How about a small tree or a large shrub that would throw some shade onto your now-frying garden? I'm sure you can convince yourself into buying *something*, no? ;)

Dee

When life hands you lemons, make lemondade, or sun! I agree, if you really want to keep this area a shade garden, you'll have to plan long-term and plant your own "shade". That takes time, so I'm afraid you lost your shade garden for the time being. Turn it into a sun garden. And if the house goes up faster than you thought, turn it back into a shade garden. There's nothing immediate you can do right now. I know because I had a large apple tree come down which created dense shade - and voila - all of a sudden it was like the area sprung into life. It's kind of cool because I can grow a lot more stuff than I ever could before. (Too bad about your neighbor.)

OK, OK I'll quit by b#@$&ing! I probably wouldn't be doing so much of that if the rains would come. On a positive note:

It will be interesting to see if the gardens need less water. That huge Elm (4 foot across stump) completely choked many of my beds with tree roots. In some places it was almost impossible to even dig. Now that the tree is gone they shouldn't be sucking every drop of water out of the garden.

I won't have nearly as many leaves to rake in the fall. Kind of a mixed blessing. I used all of them for my compost.

I should never again have to deal with all those Elm seeds. Lord they were annoying each year and I swear every single one of them sprouted once they hit the ground. Once I even took my shop vac outside and vacuumed the garden.

Now that my south side is fully exposed I have sunlight in many windows that never saw it before. That will be nice this winter. Maybe my heating bill will be a bit lower.

I'll probably still have to move some things, but not now. It's just too blasted hot and dry.

Kevin

Think about this - - Zinnias love the heat and everyone loves zinnias. You can grow all kinds, profusions, giants, magellans and be the hit of the neighborhood with all that color.

On another note - so glad your house wasn't affected

Carrie

I had a similar situation on a small scale and I planted a Heptaconium (Seven Sons) tree because it was said to grow quickly. And it has. Its not providing as much shade, of course, as the 70' pines that came down on the south side, but it's a start. I am keeping it pruned as a tree and keep removing lower branches.

In another area, I planted a Heritage Birch, and it has grown very quickly too.

Both of those trees are great because they provide filtered shade which is just right. IMO.

I water the area more now and my hosta's are not as deep colors, but still nice.

Good luck!

When Hurricane Katrina blew through here two years ago packing 100 mile winds, we sat in the house and listened to the trees falling and watching my shade garden turn into full sun overnight. With our intense summer heat, I had to act fast. I started by setting up my shade canopy. I don't know if that's the right term, but it's what vendors use at craft fairs, etc. It's basically a tent without sides. It went up fast and helped alot. Then my husband and I built some lathe houses. Basically, they are four x four posts sunk into the ground, with some 2 x 4s forming a skeleton to support sheets of lattice laid over the top. (Essentially, we built some more shade canopies, but out of permanent materials.) They are nothing fancy, but are very attractive with climbing roses trained over the tops of them, and the plants underneath are happy as clams. Pergolas would never have given enough shade for our environment, but they might for yours. The bonus is that my shade lovers no long have to compete with tree roots and they're better than ever.

Wow, donnabaskets, what a good idea!

:)
Dee

In the front of my house, I've been thinking of having some birch trees either trimmed back or cut right down to the base (to which they'd be allowd to sprout back). I'd like to have more SUNSHINE so as my future rose plantings would perform well. Although, I'm in a climate that seldom sees long stretches of very hot weather, I've sometimes had my clematis flowers burn to a crip in the hot sun and low humidity. BUT, now I'm wondering if I shall regret having the sun blasting it's full force upon my plants? I guess, for the time being, I really should just leave things as be and see how the plants fair ...

Terry

If I had my druthers, i druther have a shade garden than a sunny garden. I am in a wooded development and have developed my lot as a native plant garden. I also have quite a number of "sun-lovers" - alpine plants that thrive with just mrning sun. To bring more light in i have trimmed the trees up quite high. As noted it is a very peaceful and restful garden. I sympathize with aachenelf. Years ago a friend had her oaks defoliated by the gypsy moths. The follwoing year she had mor bloom on her mountain laurel than she ever had before.