How Our Garden Grows, Part II: They Live in the Shadows

Given a choice between partial and full shade, Sweet Woodruff prefers life on the dark side. Our plant hasn't grown much in a month or so but is vibrant and healthy and promises to sport tiny white blossoms any day now. The vanilla-grass-oat flavor intensifies when dried so Cafe Drake HRV is saving most of the stems for a final autumn pruning.

Mitsuba takes its sweet time to germinate but then thrives in dappled sunlight. We grow it next to another Asian herb craving water, warmth and shadows - Rau Ram.

New mitsuba seedlings have finally emerged. Ed. Note: Sadly we lost these two guys yesterday, their fragile selves unable to withstand too much sunlight.

Torenia loves water but dislikes hot sun. These beauties are happy in either partial or even full shade.