Well, I can tell you what to avoid: sun lovers, alkaline lovers, lovers of good drainage.
If it remains like that much of the growing season, I'd suggest looking at wetland species, there are several like the lobelias that would probably do nicely.

Oh I meant to ask, would Hydrangea do well along the side of that wall? There's some moss there too, not as much as right below the spout...

i consider grass .. the most invasive weeds in the universe ... growing in cracks in asphalt ... in rocks ... everywhere ...

when grass will not grow in a spot ... that tells me.. the only thing left in the universe.. will be moss ...

i suggest you look outside your box.. and consider a small patio there ... lay in some 2 by 2 patio stones.. and go garden.. out in the rest of the yard ...

too bad you cant reconfigure that down spout ... that a bad drainage.. and no sun.. are the base problems ... i just dont know if its worth fixing all that.. for that little spot .... that would be just as well used as a patio .. or stone walkway ...

more pix.. if you want to talk about patio idea...

ken

Hmm patio is definitely something I have not thought about before. Do you think it will be pointless to try a garden alongside the wall too or just below waterspout? I do have a covered porch to the right where it's not pictured.

Have you ever thought of putting in a rain barrel? Please tell me what zone you are in, and I can suggest some plants you can grow there. I disagree with Ken to a certain extent---I think with a tiny bit of work, you can fill this area with suitable plants.

Ah, I see now that you are in Virginia. OK, here are some suggestions:

First: The downspout has continually washed the soil in this area and depleted the nutrients in it. Additionally, if you salt the walkway along there in the winter, you probably have salt built up in the soil there. Limit the use of salt in this area going forward if you want to garden there. If you want to garden in it, you need to improve the quality of it by working in some high quality compost. By high quality, I mean something like cotton burr. Avoid composted manure and mushroom compost.

Second: If a rain barrel is not an option, definitely you need a splash block, and even better, several large, flat rocks under the spout to help slow down the force of the water coming out of the downspout, and to disperse it more evenly across the area.

Third: Select shade loving plants that like moist conditions. You can google a list easily--or ask at your local (good quality) nursery. Some examples are Astilbe, Chelone (turtlehead), Ligularia, Lobelia (cardinal flower), Ladies Mantle, and ferns.

Finally, I generally find that hydrangeas like more sun that most people think. The exception, in my personal experience, is hydrangea arborescens--look for 'Annabelle' or 'Incrediball' as examples. They are a white-flowering hydrangea, easy to establish, and very tolerant of shade.

kirs.. there really isnt anything to disagree with.. when the suggestion is to look outside the box ...

the rain barrel.. will solve the soggy soil ... but i never found much use for them ... they never develop enough head pressure ... to run the water out.. except in a hose ... i mean.. i failed with a weep hose ...

a patio .. need not be somewhere to sit ... might be a great place.. for a potting stand .... etc ...

try to fix the issue this year.. and if you dont.. patio next year ...

whether or not anything will grow along the wall.. is answered .. by planting things there .. how would anyone but you figure it out.. your soil.. is all personal to your garden.. we can speculate ... but we cant give good answers ...

think about it this way ... back in suburbia ... that space.. would have been important.. as i had limited soil space ... i would fix the issue at all cost ...

now on 5 acres ... i dont need that space.. so why waste money on solving that issue ... only you can answer that ....

ken

Kirstin - I am in northern VA so used to be 6b now 7a. I have not thought of putting in a rain barrel but I like that idea! I can totally use it for the veggie garden not too far from here. I will have to look into if there are any issues I face with it. As long as I make sure I have no mosquito issues with it I am fine to have them.

I have not used salt in this pathway during past 4 years (not sure of before), so no concern with that. But I agree that it needs some improving. I can def add some good compost there. Would mixing in vermiculite help?

I have some astilbes from close by site I can divide and plant here. And all your other suggestions sound lovely too!

Ken - I think your suggestion is good. Try to fix it this year and if not patio it next year.

I don't dislike moss there either actually! If I can encourage moss garden type with ferns and let it me what it is that works for me :) The area needs some direction though. Currently, it is just mumbo jumbo of everything... and has areas with nothing on, therefore lots of weeds during growing season.

I love the idea of a moss garden, too. Mosses are fascinating! Or a patio. So, really, it's all subjective--the right thing to put in that spot is all a matter of taste. Ken, I was only disagreeing with your implication that, if grass won't grow there, moss is the only alternative.

Anyway, just by chance, I had my cub scout den build a couple of rain barrels this year as a service project, and, lo & behold, one of the dads is an engineer who was VERY into our project. His advice was this-- one foot of elevation = approximately .5 psi. So mounting your rain barrel on a platform increases the effectiveness of actually getting the water out of it and into your garden. At the very least, you could attach a soaker hose to weave through the new bed and allow the plants to get a slow, steady drip of water, rather than an outwash which the gutter provides.

Traveler, I would encourage you to go with a purely carbon-based compost, and stay away from the vermiculite. Compost will continue to break down and supply nutrients to the soil, it will attract worms and beneficial bacteria to your soil, and, overall, over time, continue to improve your soil. I top dress all my beds with compost every year. Vermiculite, on the other hand, will pretty much just sit there.

Kirstin - I was thinking vermiculite for the purpose of improving drainage not as a compost... I would still consider myself a newbie so I might be totally talking nonsense.. :)

Looking at the pictures I don't think it's really that bad. I am saying that because the north side of my house looks just like that. a row of spruce trees on the west so the shade is even more complete. Yes I have moss growing there and no grass would take hold. Yes downspout too. However, I have hydrangea Annabelle growing there just fine. Rhododendron and azaleas have been there without any problem either. Another young hydrangea, one from Let's Dance series, is located at slightly better location with a bit morning sun is doing good. Maybe they are not to their fullest potential but still healthy and beautiful.

I also let a few vinca minor creeping and fill the empty space with coleus and impatiens. So I say give a try, you never know! Picture is the Annabelle in shady mossy spot just started blooming before the deer came.

Bloomcin - beautiful! I always wanted hydrangea on that wall, so that is good news. I just have one so far in my front - glowing embers... My siding is cream/off white so something with color might be nice, but sounds like Annabelle will be a reliable choice for that spot.

What I have growing, along with moss, on north facing gardens: hosta (they take a good soaking but wet feet will croak them), ferns (they like it damp but not wet all the time), violets (I am not sure what kills these plants. I have the plain purples, and grew some from seed (yes, I actually paid money for garden violet seeds!) that has a white flower with tiny white spots (called 'freckles'. Over time, violets make a nice ground cover but disappear in the winter).
Other things I tried that died: coral bells (failed to thrive and then disappeared over the winter) and impatiens.

Patti - that's helpful, thank you! I do have violets there already! haha. They are coming up now. They invade my lawn so I try to control it.

Why do you think coral bells didn't do well there? too much shade or too wet?

no insult taken kirst ... none meant ...

i am a big boy ... most of the time anyway .. lol ..

ken

I have hellebores in every shady spot in my garden - they love it. Also there is a very old iris called 'iris foetida' - it likes dry shade, wet shade, sun, anything. It has small nothing-to-write-home-about flowers, but in the Fall it makes amazing seed pods with red large seeds that stick on. Makes large clumps eventually.

Jackie

To answer a couple more questions--

Coral Bells want well drained soil and won't take wet feet too long before they say adios. So stay away from them in this area. However, it occurs to me that ajuga would make a great groundcover here. Check out Chocolate Chip for a low growing variety, or Kaitlen's Giant for a pretty impressive specimen plant.

I really would encourage you to avoid vermiculite altogether. Current train of though in the horticultural world has one amending the soil as little as possible. To briefly and simply explain it, imagine you have a yard full of clay, and you dig a hole and pour a bucket of water into it. How long would it take for all that water to drain? This is an actual test used both in horticulture and construction, called an infiltration test. Now, imagine you widen that hole to plant a rose....let's say you dig the hole 2x bigger than you think you need, because you want to be an extra-good gardener. Now put your rose in, and fill in with sand. I know you wouldn't use sand, but it's the opposite of clay, so I'm using it to illustrate my point. Now fill up the area again with water. Has the sand changed the infiltration properties of the native soil all around it? Of course not. So, what you have done, in effect, is planted your rose in a lovely bathtub that will fill with water very quickly, and drain very slowly. And because the sand and clay are so drastically different, the roots of your plant will never extend beyond the "easy" soil and therefore won't penetrate your "real" soil. However, if you use a good quality compost, made up of organic (by which I mean, carbon-based materials), you can improve the quality of your soils overall. Particularly, organic compost invites in the worms and microorganisms that burrow through soils, take the organic materials deep down, and open passages to allow for the transport of air and water. So, I know that is a long answer to your question about vermiculite, but I hope an explanation is worth more than a simple "no."

If you have a wet site at the end of a downspout, the perfect plant is Astilboides tabularis! I love this plant and it needs LOTS of water. To grow it, we ran a pipe from a downspout, under a path, exiting at the base of the plant, plus the next-door-neighbour directs one of their downspouts towards it too. I have a couple of other Astilboides elsewhere in the garden that just get whatever rain that falls plus some run-off from a gentle slope. They are wimpy plants compared to the one at the downspout. They are zone 3-9 plants, for sun or partial shade. Mine are in partial shade; I think for full sun they'd probably need to be beside a pond. You mainly grow them for the foliage, although they do have tall astilbe-like flowers. They aren't spreaders for me - I think their water needs keep them pretty-much confined to where those needs are met.

Hi Traveler, do you have a good nursery/garden center near you? Even if you have to drive by 2 Home Depots and a Walmart, take a road trip there and see what they have. Here in the Midwest, I have used mostly cotton burr compost, milorganite (which is made in Wisconsin), and Bumper Crop, which is a wonderful product, but expensive. But for you, out on the East Coast, you might have some other options. I think there are good products that are based on seaweed? Maybe some of the other members here who live nearer to you can recommend something that you can find. And, if you really catch the gardening bug, maybe next season you will start considering making your own! :)

Kristen, thanks for the coral bells info. We had a lot of snow piled there this year for a lot longer than the past couple. Maybe that drowned them. I had not thought to try snowballs (which I love), and I just wrote it on my get-it list.

We love our local nursery because, while they might get plants from other growers like HD and Wallymart do, they grow them in their own farm for at least 4 seasons before moving them in for sale. Annuals are okay bought at the cheapest price but I like having someone else get a tree or crapemyrtle ready to live in my area.

I had heard the warning to not amend soil before but regarding trees. The guy at our local nursery said that instead of amending anything, start off with a much smaller plant. It takes longer to get a specimen, but we've not had an epic fail in years.

Traveler, I noticed a neighbor was growing "ugly agnes" bushes on the north side of her garage as a hedge. The plants on one end took a big pruning by the deer during last month's snow storms, but they are evergreen (well, green and yellow) and looked good.

Kirstin - I do have a good nursery I can go that is close by! I was just checking online last night and website said HD and L did not carry cotton burr at the stores near me so I was wondering. Hopefully the nursery has some or something they can recommend in place! Starting my own compost pile was on my to do list, but I am taking thing slow with two littles running around and a full time job :) But I def see it in the future!

Patti - I agree, shopping at nursery is so much more enjoyable than big box store, and staff is much more knowledgeable too. Only downside is that I often come out with way more things than I intended to buy :)

I for one think everyone has had a great comment here, and I would combine the answers into one plan!

If this were my yard, I would enlarge that paved area by about three times - at least out to the ac unit and out to the line of the downspout. I think having that paved area (whether it's concrete, stones, pavers, whatever) would just help define the area, and as it stands now that walkway is too tiny and utilitarian. A bigger area will give some definition to the area as an entryway, a sitting area, etc, and look better in scale to the house. Might even be nice to have a pathway connect from that to whatever other path/walkway you have in the yard. I can't tell from the photo if there is already one there or that is just dirt.

I have three rain barrels, and love them. I should note that not a one is connected to a downspout, as DH won't hear of cutting into the downspouts, so I can only dream of the abundance of water I'd have if I did! However, even without that, mine do fill up slowly but nicely, and I do use them with watering cans, either dipped in, or under the spigot, as my barrels are on cinderblocks to give just enough height to get a watering can under. These rain barrels help me cut down on my well use, and IMO are a great idea in general in terms of water conservation.

I'm not quite sure WHERE you want to put a garden - along the wall where the ac unit is? To the left of the photo where that bag is? Extending it out from the bag to cover that green area? Is that where the moss is? IMO, you can have a garden almost anywhere, if you have the right plant for the spot. I've put in a bog-type garden in an area where it floods every spring, and which sometimes has standing water well into August. Again, it's the matter of the right plant. Determine just how wet this area is, and do your homework researching plants that like that moisture level and the sun levels you have. Amending the soil helps, but do it as nature would - don't try to change the soil there, but enhance it. It will take some trial and error but I'm sure it can be done. There are many plants you can use.

As for moss, I too don't understand why some people dislike it so much. I had a friend who I used to help in her garden, and we live in a very wooded area. She had a quite damp yard, and lots of shade and trees, and along the edge of the lawn she had these wide swaths of moss - a good 10 to 15 feet deep from edge of lawn to woods. She tried for years to get rid of it and get grass to grow. I always told her it looked wonderful, it was soft, green, and from a distance who could tell? She was constantly worried about the resale value of not having a lawn (and it's going on a least 25 years that she's been in the house and worrying about this!). The one downfall to moss, IMO, is that it does rake up very easily when you are raking up leaves, so that is a pain. But other than that, if its green and nothing else will grow there (in terms of lawn, not garden), then that is the plant to have there! I don't know. I guess I'm just a big believer in working with nature and not against her.

Good luck and keep us posted on your evolving garden!
Dee

Dee -

For putting in a new garden, I was thinking where the bag is out to where moss is. I already have garden going where the AC unit is -some ferns, Japanese forest grass and astilbes. Right around the down spout in front of the shed there are a lot of weeds/moss and grass does not do well there anyways. I have not thought about expanding the pathway. It is really tiny and narrow right now. I do have a patio to the right of below picture that has seating area, etc.

I marked my picture on what I was thinking of converting to a garden bed. This might need to happen over two years, so I will do the left half this year and right half next year. I am 100% up for planting what works there! If moss, I want to encourage moss, but there are lots of weeds there too. Maybe I will try some large flagstones/splash block/rain barrel to see how that changes the area and next year I can decide next steps.