Hi everyone. I've been gardening and a member of this forum here for about 3 years and have benefited tremendously from all the posts and advice that all you nice folks are kind enough to share. So I'd like to share some of the things I've learned with my plants the past few years - hopefully someone might find it useful. I'm also open to any advice on any of this...

I live in a newer development in the OKC area so I have clay soil and lots of sun and very few tall trees in the neighborhood, so shade comes from my house and fence. I am starting to get into composting, but the past couple years I've basically amended my soil with the mushroom compost that Lowes carries.

On the east side of the house I grow a variety of hostas, japanese ferns, some irish moss, and a variety of mondo grass in between it all and for some winter colour. I like the monochromatic green look and variation in the texture of the foliage. However, this particular area, while only getting around 3 hours of sun per day, gets it from about 1030 or 11 am to about 1 or 1:30 pm - when the sun is at its highest - so by late July, things are getting quite toasted. I prop some lattice up over it, but once the hostas start sending up spires(around late July) I have to move it and the foliage then gets pretty fried. The hosta blooms, however, are spectacular huge white blooms, even though I wanted them for the foliage. I counted 15 spires on one plant, and their showiness almost outdoes that of my lilies. Anyway, I am convinced that this area could support plants intended for full sun, as I have a spiderwort flourishing a mere few feet from the hostas, and a few feet further away (albeit a spot that gets a bit more sun), I have started a lily bed.

The lily bed gets morning sun, some afternoon shade, and then later afternoon / evening dappled sun (from my arbor that the beds are planted adjacent to). This is proving to be ideal. I have some daylilies planted amidst a variety of asiatics. This bed was started anew this spring, and so everything bloomed at curious times. It will be interesting to see if everything blooms together (or staggered) in future years. I also scattered some columbine amidst the lilies, in the hopes that the lilies would sort of shade the columbines, which do need some shade. Well, perhaps predictably, they started to brown up in the order of most to least sun, and the last one is about to go. It might survive, but I doubt it. I dug one up in late june and put some ajuga in its place for some groundcover, and it is taking off. I am worried that it will become invasive. In a slightly shadier area I have a hydrangea sort of "half-potted" in a container until I figure out where I want to plant it in the ground. To be honest, I don't like it. Its blooms were the color of pepto bismol and when it rained it would beat it to the ground.

On the north side of my house I have many of the same things planted, but they do handle the hot months better, despite getting more sun (couple hours in the morning, 3-4 hours in the evening), but since it is not "direct" sun, they take it much better. I have some sweet woodruff over there, and it looks great in the spring, but right now it looks pretty brown and ratty.

I also have a big cana lily on the NW corner of the house, which survived its first winter this year. I was worried b/c it's a bit exposed from the north, but it made it. And despite getting sun only in the early morning and later afternoon, it grew to 6 ft last summer and is already there now, and about 3 feet in diameter. I love it.

I planted a clematis vine that gets morning and early afternoon sun, and have it growing up on old rusty metal gate. I planted it from a bulb and think I put it in too deep b/c it didn't really come up until May (planted it in March). It has grown to maybe a foot tall and had about 5 or 7 blooms in June-July. Now it looks to be done - both blooming and growing, but it is still healthy-looking. I hope it grows more next summer.

Our house faces south, and this area has been the biggest challenge since we have no big trees to provide shade. I did drop some cash on a fairly tall shumard oak (about 20 feet), but I wanted to keep it away fom the house so it is a good 35 feet out and won't shade any of these beds for a very long time. I do have some shrubs that provide some shade for perennials, though, but in general, the more sun an area gets, the harder time I am having.

I decided to go for succulents in the hottest, sunniest area, and even this has been a challenge. I've had some luck (about 50-50) with hardy iceplant, very little luck with hens n chicks, and moderate luck with some stonecrop. The stonecrop breaks off a lot, and the iceplant looks stressed in this heat. I'm not sure why b/c I've seen this stuff growing in sand dunes in the desert!

Nearby I have some dwarf salvia, that looks really great in the spring, and then is good for one more round of less impressive blooms after a good cut-back, and then is done by mid-June. Right now they are little green unimpressive mounds about 6-8" in diameter.

I also have some society garlic planted on the south side, which gets some afternoon shade. Here's the thing: I bought this stuff having no idea it was not hardy here (hardy to zone 9) and stuck it right in the ground....that was 3 years ago and it has come back especially great this year. I think all the snow we had protected it this past winter, as last winter one of them sustained some freeze damage. Otherwise, it has performed like a champ, sending up wonderful little purple flowers on 18-24" spires from about June until it gets cold. This winter I am thinking of filling up a burlap sack (do they still make those?) with mulch and plopping it right on top of them. I love these things, and a bonus is that I don't think I will have to divide them b/c the winters here have kept them from really getting any bigger. I moved one this past spring, though, and it seems to be getting along fine.

I also planted some shrubs--two blue arrow junipers and a helmond pillar barberi in a large container. I put the junipers (Monrovia brand from Marcum's) in last April at about 5 feet tall and they have grown at least a foot since then - pretty impressive for a plant that is supposed to be "slow growing." They are also growing a bit wider than I had hoped (already about 2 feet in diameter), but I think this is b/c our oklahoma wind sort of "ruffled" their otherwise tight narrow growth habit. I suppose pruning them is inevitable.

The barberi comes and goes. This is its third season, and last year it kept its leaves until almost November, but didn't leaf-out until late May. This year, it got leaves about a month earlier and looked great until it started getting really hot. Now it has dropped some of its leaves. I remember it did this the first summer I planted it (I planted it late), and it came back fine, if late. Container gardening is just so different that I wonder if I can make this work in this area that is extremely hot and sunny, as it seems pretty obvious that the roots are getting too hot this time of year.

Well, that's about it. I hope some of you find this useful, and I am open to any suggestions on how to improve as a gardener. I hope to get into vegetable gardening next year and am constructing the garden area in the coming weeks. Wish me luck!

GM