"It matters to this one"

There's an old story about a little boy who was out on the beach after a big storm had washed up scores of starfish. He was throwing them back into the water, saving them from drying out and dying.

A passer-by stopped him. "Son, stop wasting your time. There are more starfish out here than you can ever throw back. You're not going to make a difference."

The boy looked back at the starfish in his hand, then looked the walker in the eye. He said, "It makes a difference to this one," turned, and went back to his work.

In a similar vein, allow me to present the first good news I've heard come out of the gulf region since the deep-water oil well ruptured: a chap with the YouTube handle of "guitarest" is doing what he can - all on his own - to save a few of the gulf's marine natives. On June 30, 2010 he wrote:

I originally set this tank up approx 3 months ago and since then the tank was slowly converted to a salt/fresh water tank so I would be able to catch local fish and keep them in a tank safe from the oil spill.

The tank now includes loads of fish I rescued from areas that might be hit by oil from the BP spill. I have wild shortfin molly's , mosquito fish (or known as guppies), pin fish, speckled trout, crawfish, hermit crab, blue crabs, a rock crab, shrimp, needle fish, and a huge bull frog tadpole.....

I am running a brackish tank and in a month I will have a larger 100 gal tank so these guys can live in a better and not so crowded environment.

Guitarest followed up on July 11 with a video, some pictures and these comments:

Ok its been a few months (since before February) when I started this project. I have gone through three different sized tanks. Sadly a few fish have died in the process of getting this tank up and running and doing what it was purchased for; a attempt to safe a few of our native fish from a death of mans mistake with the Deep Water Oil Rig...

I have let a estimated 30 fish go, and 6 larger blue crabs and the tank finally appears stabilized. I have had to do a estimated 500gal of water changes mostly due to over-crowding in the tank. As you can see the tank does appear to be...stabilized.

A tank to be proud of, indeed. My hat's off to you, sir.

The Shade Path

This article could also have been titled "What should we do with that grass alley between the house and the sidewalk?"

On the positive side, there were two mature maple trees on that side of the house, and a slope down to the sidewalk, so the house wasn't quite naked, and passers-by weren't actually in the lawn.

On the "challenges" side: two mature trees planted close to a house makes for a very dry, shady spot. Finding plants that  thrive under those conditions can be tough. Also, despite the slope, the sidewalk and street are quite close, so creating a feeling of separation would be necessary.

Fencing in the entire property was prohibitively expensive and not quite the feel that we wanted, so we settled on making a garden path. The focal point at one end would be the garden gate into the fenced-in backyard. The other end would open up next to a weeping cherry tree featured in the front yard.

Planting the full length of the path makes a feeling of gentle movement, shepherding one's attention forward, to the next flower, rather than sideways to the street or house. At least, that was the idea.

Our first step was to plant a semi-formal-looking row of "ball" arborvitae just to the outside of the trees.

In retrospect, these might not have been the absolute best choice, since they resent being clipped too closely, but we knew that they would grow fairly quickly, and much more quickly than box.

We supplemented these with tiny rhododendron shrubs, which like shade and will look magnificent if they survive to their 10-feet by 10-feet + mature size. (But, the rhodies are struggling with the lack of moisture and we may eventually have to replace them.) The line of shrubs, while far from solid, helped to establish a visual line - a symbolic break between public and private space.


So far so good.

We made the path by cutting in long beds on either side of the yard. The grassy walk left between them we allowed to taper, being most narrow by the gate. This helps to force perspective and make the walk look longer and more dramatic than it really is, again pulling the eye along, away from the house and street.

Then came the fun part - herbaceous planting!

Our gardening budget wasn't terribly large, but more than one of our friends had big old hostas, which like shade, tolerate dry conditions and need to be divided every so often to retain their vigor. So we did some friendly bartering. Our friends got some garden maintenance, and we got divisions from their hostas. Besides a white and green variegated hosta that is very common here in town (it's old, so we're not sure exactly what it is) we gained starters for a couple of fun newer variates too, like Northern Exposure and Great Expectations. We also got a few stalks of yellow-creme perennial foxgloves.

Then we splurged $20 or so on some tiny blue-leaved hosta seedlings,  a white Bleeding-Heart, a big stack of Forget-Me-Not seed packets, and one of columbine seeds. It doesn't sound like much in the re-telling and, truth be told, things took a while to get going. But we were delighted with the results the following spring.

Everything has filled in nicely since then, and we've tried a bunch of other perennials (shade-loving Geraniums and Lenten Roses, for instance), and added a few annuals (mostly Impatiens) and biannuals (Foxgloves) for extra color.

The extra challenge of gardening in the shade has made this one of our favorite and most rewarding gardens.

We love to be in it, whether walking or weeding.


Just recently we added a few solar-powered lights along the path, and now we spend time strolling back and forth after dark too.

I'd love to hear about your own experiences with shade gardening, and your favorite shade (or drought-resistant) plants. But I'll understand if you don't have time to write, as long as you,

- Don't stay indoors!