Here, you can see the top of the sunny bed:
The large shrub is something my cousin calls a sweetbush and it offers some shade for some things that don't like full blaring sun all the time. We have a lot of coneflowers and blackeyed susans, and lots of things are getting moved around! The whole area around the old clothesline pole is destined to be made into a bed -- it's bigger than it looks from this picture.
Here is some of the area being shaded by the sweetbush:
I call this "Hannah's corner" because Hannah is the neighbor on that side.
Previously this area was filled with devilvine, ivy, and other unwanted plants, and my cousin had been in the habit of putting cardboard down to discourage the weediness but then just pretty much leaving it there -- so it was unsightly.
Just outside the frame is a lovely pink rose. I have freed an area around the rose from ivy, which grows all along Hannah's fence to the street, and pruned it a little. In the right of the frame is a patch of creeping jenny that I intend to be a sort of mother plant from which I've already taken a few plugs for elsewhere around. Also in the corner under the bright prayer flags (which were a gift to me from the other side neighbors and which brighten that corner up so well) are two ferns, one a Japanese Painted Fern and the other a variety I don't know, as well as a patch of chocolate mint! Uncontained! Because I want something that will spread there! So far it is behaving itself more than I hoped.
To the left of this as you look at it is a spot where I want to try to grow some hardy ginger lily.
