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In my front yard the shade comes from two large (2 & 3 diameter trunk) Silver Maples that are slowly losing branches and dying. Every major storm that rolls through usually causes a 4 to 8 thick branch to break off. With each loss of limb I get more sunlight on my hostas. One 6 limb was so weak it leaned down onto a high power line and caught fire this year.
At first it wasnt too bad. My old Sum & Substance gets a lot of sun now which it can handle and does not burn, but my Lemon Lime, Golden Tiara and Golden Scepter are cooking big time. That didnt bother me too much as I have other clumps of them elsewhere but now I have noticed that the edges of my giant Samual Blue are turning brown. That had never happened before. Midas Touch isnt handling the additional sun well either. Great Expectations got a lot of afternoon sun which it handled even though my Neapolitan Mastiffs stomped it a few times early this year, the centers of it are almost pure white.
About 3 months ago I had an idea to build a 27 wide by 12 deep attached pergola across the front of the house to shade the hostas. I had it all planned and drawn out to scale to meet my local building codes. It is designed as if it were a deck, very heavy duty as I wanted to grow Wisteria on top of it. But, I then found out that the city will not let me do it as there is a special code for my southside, old (1940s) neighborhood that says anything done on the front has to match the rest of the houses. Basically it has to be ugly.
So instead of building a very nice pergola, this is what I did temporarily and it looks horrible. I bought a 35 x 10 piece of 80% black woven shade cloth. I installed grommets every 6 and attached it to the house all the way across the front. It is attached to the two big trees plus I used 3 antique wood tent poles to help hold the front edge up as well. It is the ugliest thing you can imagine but it is making shade.
Afternoon sun is the problem. When the sun gets up to a point where it shines down between the big trees and the house for about 3 to 4 hours starting at noon. I had 20 varieties of hosta this past spring. Over the past three months I added 40 new varieties. There is no way I will let them just burn. Right now I do not have any planting area against the north side of the house as the driveway is poured all the way up to the house. I am in the process of cutting the concrete and busting it out so I will have more room (approx 10 x 20) for more hostas and shade loving plants. I prefer gardening in the shade.
Once seeing how ugly the shade cloth is we have decided to try and get a zoning variance from the city to build the pergola in the spring. Materials alone is $1,600.00+, its a really nice one. The top has so many layers with 2 x 10 rafters, 2x 4 battens laying flat on their sides spaced every 6 and additional 2 x 4 & 2 x 2 wood details on top of the battens that the open areas where light can shine through only measure 2 x 2. Labor is free, my labor. They want $150.00 just to apply for a variance and there is no guarantee we will get it. If they say no, you just lose the $150.00. You have to prove a hardship. My hostas are burning. Isnt that a hardship??? Nowhere to put them. That is a hardship. At least it is to me. :^(
I had planted 3 new fast growing trees. Paulownias/Empress trees. Then I find out they will probably die back in my zone 5a. Got them on Ebay. Will use protection on them this winter. They are only a foot tall right now but are supposed to be able to grow 10 to 15 feet a year. Hasnt happened here yet. I really dislike the Silver Maples because of the shallow root system. It makes planting a single plant take an hour just to dig the hole because of the surface roots. I had thought about Poplars then read bad things about their lifespans and root systems. They send up sucker plants when you take out the tree and are hard to remove.
Anyone have any suggestions on trees that would be good fast growing replacements? No on Oaks, they have acorns, which attract squirrels, which kill plants when hiding the acorns and digging them back up. Been there done that. I plan on picking up 2 or 3 new trees next week with about 2 diameter trunks. I just need to decide what kind. Sewer line is in front yard so Willows are out. Buckeyes are bad. Lawnmowers send them flying and they hurt when you step on them barefooted. River Birch are bad, they send up sucker plants from their roots halfway across the yard. Silver & Norway Maples are bad, surface roots and they pushed up the sidewalk I am now replacing. Sycamores are very messy and the roots destroy sidewalks and driveways. There is no where shady to move the hostas. Many of the hostas I have in pots need to go where I am tearing out the driveway.
The yard size for the trees is approximately 30 x 40 and half of it is hosta beds now with more to come. The new trees need to be able to grow in broken sunlight. An English Mastiff, Pitbull, German Shepherd and two Neapolitan Mastiffs own the back yard. The area north of the garage is going to be the winter storage area for the plants remaining in pots where I will bury the pots and cover with mulch.
Frank
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