How does your garden grow - Pawtucket RI

Three years ago I was contacted by a couple in Pawtucket, RI who are very gifted gardeners. They had done some wonderful stuff in their backyard shade gardens. This side of the house was a barren wasteland of a couple of shrubs and a slope covered with ailing grass. Her husband had the vision of the wall and the grass strip and he took that part of the project on himself with the mason. I was given the task of helping the wife with choices of plants and placement of the shrubs they had in the stone wall gardens to come.

They had a mix of sun and shade with the dogwood in the corner of the wall by the street and the north facing house. The side of the house is blazing west sun and they wanted something that would give them all year interest. We chose red twigged dogwood 'Ivory Halo', winterberry 'Red Sprite', Globe Blue Spruce for some of the new shrubs. They had quite a few perennials around the yard that needed to be moved. We also utilized a clematis that never flowered for them before until it was moved to this garden.



They installed the gardens themselves last June during the torrents of rain which became a god send for all of the newly planted plants. These photos are of the gardens in their second year. As far as I know, they didn't have any failures and everything came back.

We used mostly the shade plants they had in the back yard to build this bed here by the street. I did suggest some new things for textural differences which the clients really enjoy.




I'm very pleased with how this project turned out as are the clients.