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Passionate Gardeners

Non-Stop Gardening Tips & Inspiration

25 Best in Plants for Part Shade and Shade!

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Some of the most beautiful gardens are shade gardens, or gardens that receive dappled light filtered through the canopy of trees. Urban gardens, like San Francisco home gardens are often surrounded by homes and buildings, creating shadows, and shade, which changes throughout the day and seasons. If this is your experience, and you live in a mild winter climate, the 25 Best in Plants for Shade and Part Shade has a number of goodies for you to consider.

Canary Bellflower Vine: Winter Blooming in Part Shade? Amazing!

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This may be just the vine you’re looking for.

It’s rare, not the easiest to get your hands on, but worth a try.

Canary Bellflower vine (Canarina canariensis) is from the cloud forest of the Canary Islands.

Mild climates serve this vine and let me show you (below) what lovely flowers are served up in winter, when few vines are blooming (yes, Hardenbergia vines are blooming).

7 Good Trailing Plants for Walls

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If you’re looking for some trailing plant choices to add greenery – maybe even a splash of flower color to your wall -here are 7 excellent options!  These evergreen options will give all season coverage, providing interest, character and clothing even on the bleakest winter days.
Of course, there are plenty more trailing options than these…

Best Plant for Winter and Spring Flowering? Cymbidium Orchid

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A plant that should be way more popular in San Francisco Bay Area gardens is the Cymbidium orchid.

Why? Take a look at the flowers… Take a look at the thin strappy, evergreen leaves. (Ok, forget the leaves, just take a look at the flowers!)

Not many plants offer the bloom finesse this regal plant offers. Plus, blooms can last for 2 – 3 months grown either in a pot or the ground (photos below.) Each year, if planted in the right location, these evergreen beauties can send out reliable flower spikes which will have you and

Happy Fall! October’s Outdoor Beauty!

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Hello friends. Happy FALL! Hope you’re enjoying this lovely season! We are. Being an east coast gal, growing up with 4-distinct seasons, I always feel that it’s hugely important to tap into FALL; not just from a garden’s view point (which shows seasonality even in our mild Mediterranean SF climate), but, more so, enjoying and gaining inspiration from nature with leaves turning and falling, daylight changing and shortening;

7 Fragrant Flowering Plants for the Mild Mediterranean Garden

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If you’re looking to add some fragrant plants to the garden, check-out these 7 in today’s post. As there are many more; for example, the spring blooming bulb, Freesia, comes to mind, as do fragrant roses, lilies, lilacs, jasmine, honeysuckle and unsung ones like say Pittosporum tobira (flowers smell like…

Lady Banks Yellow Climbing Rose – Not your Average Rose!

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If you’re looking for a thornless climber and you love roses here’s one to check out: Yellow Lady Bank’s Climbing Rose (Rosa banksiae’Lutea’). This early blooming rose won’t disappoint and having no thorns won’t shred you or your family and friends if it grows a little rambunctious in the summer.

Winter Flowers Combine a Simple Tapestry of Color and Fragrance

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There is always an opportunity to create a vignette in the garden including a lovely winter vignette in our mild Mediterranean climate. While the winter flowering plant list is slim compared to other seasons, there are lovely ways to enjoy a hint of color during the shortest, coldest, possibly wettest days.  In this short post enjoy a few plants woven together to create a simple floor plane tapestry. Here we go, enjoy!

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