Tackling A Few Garden Challenges

Do you have areas in your garden that present a constant challenge for one reason or another?

One such area for me is right here at the front door.

I like to have something growing in the pots to soften up the space and look more welcoming.  The challenge here is the area is in total shade.  Through the years I have tried a variety of shade loving plants (caladium, coleus, impatiens, etc.). While in most cases they lived out the season, they didn't exactly thrive and also didn't look too impressive as the season wore on.  Not what I want right at the entrance to my home.

While at the garden center over the weekend, I settled on these ferns.

I've given up on flowers here.  I do like the looks of ferns on front porches, so I have high hopes for these.

According to the information on the plant tag, it should be happy in it's new home.  I think the golden-orange fronds will add some interest too.  Plus the fact that it is a perennial will mean that it won't be necessary to replant the pots every year.

Throwing in a photo from my garden center visit.

With Mother's Day coming up, the displays were particularly pretty.

Another challenge in the garden is the state of this Sky Pencil Holly.

There is one on each side of the grill.  The one on the right looks fine.

This one has dead branches and yellowing leaves.  It just doesn't look healthy and I wasn't sure what the problem was.  The other day I noticed little bright orange dots running around the stone surfaces next to the grill.  I am guessing them to be spider mites.  That made me wonder whether that was the problem on the nearby holly.

The day I was at the garden center they were handing out ladybugs free with a purchase.  In reading the label I learned that they love to feast on spider mites and many other undesirable garden pests.

How interesting, I thought.

I learned many things about their life cycles and how to release them into the garden to obtain the best result.

It was suggested to water the affected plant well, wait until dusk or early morning and then open the bag and let them crawl out on their own.  Shaking the bag to get them out could cause them to fly away.

Here they are emerging from the mesh bag.

Now I leave them to have a feast.

I much prefer this method to spraying a bunch of pesticides.

Time will tell whether the problem will be solved.  If it is, I may purchase more lady bugs to assist in keeping the bad pests out of the garden.

Enjoy this last day of April!!