Southern Secrets; Creating Shade

Fast Growing But Wind Strong Trees to Plant Now

Here are two excerpts from a chapter in the new book Creating Shade. In this chapter, I interviewed professional horticulturists for the first time, to get a complete picture of why specific trees do what they do.

My question to you all is: Do you like including other voices? The first excerpt is just me, telling a story that introduces the entire chapter.

Every new garden needs shade, and most gardeners want it yesterday. When I bought my fixer-upper house, I realized that the back room, lovely in winter with its nine windows, would be unusable with brutal western sun pounding in during summer. I moved in the spring and knew I'd need quick summer shade. But I also knew it was smart to think through different timelines - the first summer would need cheap, fast shade. Over the next few years, in the medium term, I could plan more, and for the long term, I wanted shade trees. Here's what worked.

By March, I had luffa gourd seeds in the ground along that western wall. With some bamboo canes and baling twine creating a simple trellis. Those vines shaded my windows by May. Later that summer, I built a simple basic pergola from bamboo, and that fall, I planted it with crossvine and evergreen solanum for shade three to five years down the road. Meanwhile, I planted a young May Haw and nurtured a volunteer walnut for decade-long shade planning. The luffa died off, I later killed the cross vine, and now, I have to prune the May Haw so it doesn't hit the windows and roof. This layered approach - immediate, soon, and later - is your blueprint for garden shade.

The chapter delves into:

• Permanent Structures such as pergolas

• Temporary Structures that you can build quickly from bamboo or vines

• Vines with Various Growth Rates

• Fast Growing, But Long-lived Strong Trees