Making a shade garden at a customers place

I’m going to write a little about my garden renovation work which I recently conducted. This garden space is located between a house and a fence facing north. This means it doesn’t get enough sunlight. My customer tried to plant several trees, but none of them grew properly. They decided to ask for my help.

If you want to plant trees in a shaded place, it is essential to pick a tree that has a high shade tolerance. After asking about the customer’s preference, I picked several plants that grow well in the shade and chose bright colors to help lighten up the space.

There are three necessary (and important) things for growing a tree; sunlight, water, and soil. I chose shade tolerant plants for the garden so they can get enough sunlight for their growth. Water can be added by someone as needed. However, soil is the most important part of ensuring plants success.

I checked the soil condition and found that there was a good amount of pebbles that needed to be removed. Also, the soil itself was too hard for plant roots to grow and water to drain.

I started by improving the condition of the soil. First, I dug a 60cm hole and got rid of the pebbles. The hard soil doesn’t contain many minerals and is bad for water draining so I added a mixture of planting soil and composted leaves into the existing soil.

After this, I rearranged the stones to make enough space for the trees. Then, I planted the trees and bushes.

This is the list of plants I used at this time;

・Longstalk holly

・Eurya japonica (spotted)

・Japanese Laurel (spotted)

・Dwarf lily-turf (spotted)

They will grow bigger in the future, so I left extra space. Because I used spotted plants, the garden looks bright in the shade.