Glorious Shade
In Glorious Shade—Dazzling plants, design ideas, and proven techniques for your shady garden, Jenny Rose Carey shows how any shady spot can be a wonderful mix of textures, colors, flowers, and seasonal interest.
Quarry/Shade Garden
Continuing Tradition, Introducing Change: The Quarry Shade Garden
The new(ish) leadership of our Quarry Shade Demonstration Garden has reinvigorated the garden with more native plants.
Unusual ‘Accents’ in the Shade Garden
The Shade Garden at Bon Air Park in Arlington is one of the smallest of the demonstration gardens maintained by the Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia. Located off Wilson Boulevard at 850 N. Lexington St., the garden hosts nearly 100 different plant varieties, a few of which may be unfamiliar, if not unusual, to visitors. Learn about three of the unusual plants in the garden.
Spring Beauty or Beast?
When spring finally arrived in the DC metro area, a rather showy groundcover had already made its presence known – lesser celandine or Ranunculus ficaria.
Despite its visual appeal, this groundcover is highly invasive.
Spring Ephemerals in the Shade, Part 2
By Mary Free, Extension Master Gardener Originally posted April 2012 Continued from Ephemerals in the Shade Garden – Part 1, featuring bulbs, corms and trilliums. Although Bon Air Park’s Shade …
Spring Ephemerals in the Shade, Part 1
If you have planted daffodils or crocuses, then you have grown ephemerals. Bulbs and corms produce a succession of colorful blooms from January to May. Once they complete their display, they retreat and rest underground until the next spring. . . . In the United States, though, the term “spring ephemerals” usually refers to native North American wildflowers whose natural habitat is a deciduous forest.
Summer in the Shade Garden – Shade Garden Phlox
By Dina Lehmann-Kim, Extension Master Gardener All Photos © 2017 Dina Lehmann-Kim In late July through early August, the Shade Garden at Bon Air Park features a floral display that …
Hellebores – A Gardener’s Comfort
By Dina Lehmann-Kim, Extension Master Gardener Avid gardeners spend the winter months gazing through plant catalogs, planning for changes and new additions to their gardens while eagerly awaiting the first …
Signs of Spring in the Shade Garden
By Dina Lehmann-Kim, Master Gardener To any garden visitor strolling through Bon Air Park’s Shade Garden in mid-January, clumps of snowdrops would have immediately captured their attention given the backdrop …
Fall Colors in the Shade Garden
by Dina Lehmann-Kim, Master Gardener Fall on the East Coast usually conjures up the colors associated with the incredible display of the season’s changing leaves— brilliant oranges, fiery reds, and …
The Shade Garden Showcases Ferns
by Dina Lehmann-Kim, Master Gardener Japanese Painted FernPhoto © 2016 Dina Lehmann-Kim While the Shade Garden at Bon Air Park is host to a wide variety of plants, the stars …
Master Gardeners and TreeStewards Work Together at Shade Garden
by Dina Lehmann-Kim, Master Gardener On Thursday, June 2, 2016, a productive collaboration took place at the Shade Garden – a work party between Master Gardeners and the TreeStewards of …
Shade Garden News
by Dina Lehmann-Kim, Master Gardener When the Shade Garden held its work party April 16 to pot up plants for the Master Gardeners (MG) of Northern Virginia’s annual plant sale …
There is More to a Garden than Flowers and Foliage – Wildlife in the Shade Garden
By Mary Free, Extension Master Gardener In early spring, the Quarry/Shade Garden is hardly shady. Before the trees have leafed out, sun streams through bare branches beckoning the ephemerals to emerge and …
Happy 25th Anniversary Quarry/Shade Garden!
Twenty-six years ago, Bon Air Park’s Quarry/Shade Garden was neither a quarry nor a garden. The 40‘ x 30’ site, once used as a quarry for inferior- grade building stone, sat idle and overgrown...It is fitting that the idea for reclaiming the present site was conceived during an Earth Day celebration in Bon Air Park in 1988. It would become the first of seven demonstration gardens in Arlington and Alexandria, developed and maintained by MGNV.
March was here, but where is Spring?
Written by Mary Free, Certified Master Gardener After one of the warmest winters on record, the March Shade Garden (pictured below) in Bon Air Park was awash in color with …
The Shade Garden’s Featured Plant: Crocus
Continuing in the featured plant series, the volunteers at the Shade Garden have added the Crocus Flyer (PDF). The crocus is a perennial that grows from a corm. Typically known for their …
The Shade Garden’s Featured Plant: Helleborus
The volunteers at the Shade Garden routinely create flyers to highlight seasonal items of interest in the garden. Lately added to the display case is the Helleborus Flyer (PDF). Read online and …
The Quarry Shade Garden at Bon Air Park
Gardens flourish when we choose plants that are suited to existing site conditions (sun exposure, moisture level, and soil type). The Quarry Shade Garden features many plants native to our area and to the eastern U.S., along with well-adapted, non-invasive exotics. The use of native plants provides nourishment and habitat to local wildlife and has the added benefit of being low-maintenance for gardeners.