Stalking the Sun, Following the Shade: My Quest for a Patio Garden

All the time and energy spent tracking the subtle solar changes is what makes full-sun so desirable to me.”

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s garden,” I tell myself as I drive past the guy who lives kitty-corner to me, out tending his army of blooming roses.

His patio is a Disneyland of summertime’s greatest hits. Mingled with the floribundas are towering delphiniums and hollyhocks. Cushions of California poppies protrude underfoot, and hanging baskets full of purple petunias dangle from the awning, cascading like majestic floral waterfalls.

Although the display is magnificent, it’s not so much the abundance of flowers I envy; what I am most jealous of is the sun exposure.

He catches my beady little eyes peering over the steering wheel and gives a friendly wave. I quickly return the gesture and then speed off to crawl back into my very own, dark, northerly exposed, cave-like patio.

Trying to work with such growing conditions has given me flashbacks to a few years ago when forest surrounded my garden, and I would obsessively watch the sun move through the trees, madly mapping seasonal shifts around the big-leaf maple foliage and bows of fir needles. I would casually mention every few weeks our need to stock up on firewood, hoping I could get someone more capable to take a chainsaw to each limb or trunk blocking the rays at crucial moments of the day.

The same sentiment followed me to our current residence, and I have wondered what it would take to tear the awning off the front, though I’ve been told that is not advisable if we want our deposit back.

The general guidelines for determining what kind of sun exposure your garden has go as follows: Full-sun means more than six hours, and full-shade means less than four hours. Partial sun or shade means an area gets from four to six hours of direct exposure, which doesn’t have to be consecutive.

When you’re shopping for plants, the part sun and part shade labels also mean the plants need between four and six hours of sun. The only difference is what time of day they should be getting that sun. Part sun means the plant can handle morning shade with afternoon sun. Part shade means the plant does best with morning sun and afternoon shade.

From my observations, beginning around the solstice and going until about mid-summer, a sliver of concrete where most of my pots are crammed escapes the shadow of the roofline and gets showered with early-morning and late-afternoon sunlight (for a total of five hours of sun).

The pots in deepest corners also receive their own special kiss of solar energy as the sun rises and sets.

Then, as we approach late summer, when the sun’s descent back down south for the winter becomes more noticeable, the entire patio returns to full-shade conditions and stays that way until the next spring, when the sunlight briefly begins to graze the edges of the patio once more.

All the time and energy spent tracking the subtle solar changes is what makes full-sun so desirable to me. There’s no need to sit and interpret anything. You know exactly how much sun your garden receives, which makes buying plants easy because the selection of sun-loving specimens is essentially endless.

Even plants that grow in full shade, like hosta and ferns, can be seen growing just as well in excessively sunny areas. But put a full-sun plant in the shade, and it won’t take long for it to realize the utter betrayal. It might hang in there out of spite, but in a desperate attempt to find the warm embrace of sunlight, it will end up looking spindly and despondent.

Going to a nursery while in the midst of experiencing a brief, mere two-and-a-half-month moment of solar elation has been like going grocery shopping while you’re hungry; diet be damned.

I have learned to avoid indulging in things like lavender, agastache, and anything that fruits. Even in a good economy, that would be foolish. But recently I couldn’t help but think, regardless of the part-sun sojourn during the summer, perhaps it’s time I came to terms with it and learned to savor the spoils of a partial-to-full-shade growing experience.

Focusing on shade has ironically shed light on how many plants I have overlooked while yearning for sun.

Foliage is a staple of a shady garden, and much of it provides year-round interest. Pots planted with evergreens like deer tongue and Christmas ferns will stay looking lively through winter.

The color variation in shade-loving foliage can also be a means of brightening up a dark area. The brilliance in the lime green of creeping Jenny paired with a deep purple heuchera might otherwise be lost in a sunny bed.

As far as flowers go, I’ve added tried-and-true pansies and primrose, blooms I had never considered as more than bedding annuals, but which have a more majestic look if only one or two are part of a potted arrangement. Bleeding heart is another I had only ever seen in the garden, but it is equally as whimsical, springing out of a container.

If I wanted to impose even more limitations on what I can plant, there are thousands of different varieties of hosta I could start collecting. Or perhaps I might focus on building my own forest understory of PNW natives like yellow wood sorrel and creeping dogwood.

Driving by the rose-flanked patio now, I give a tip of my hat to the glorious use of sun-drenched soil. If I lived there, I’d like to think I’d do the same. Or maybe I would drive by a covered patio like mine and feel mildly bitter that whoever lives there probably has a cheaper water bill.