It’s just after 6 p.m. My fingernails are filthy, my shoes are muddied (and in the garage), I have hat hair, my lower back is talking to me, and the shade garden bed that I dreamed about all winter has begun to take shape.

It was a very good day in the garden.

This was a day of moving plants from one bed to another, checking the layout I painstakingly mapped out in the midst of winter–desperate for a spring day like today–and making modifications on the fly. My daughter Louise and I hoisted a concrete plant stand and moved it to the middle of the bed, which could have something to do with the backache. Here is what has gone into this fence-line shade bed that is anchored at the top by a maple tree and curves at the bottom into the wet “problem zone” of the yard:

• Astilbe Chinensis “Visions,” featuring a raspberry red plum.
• Ostrich fern (Matteuccia Matteuccia). Placed in the back of the bed in front of the fence because they can grow five and a half feet tall.
• Hosta “Frances William.” This is one forgiving plant because I have moved it three times in three years and it seems unfazed.
• Heuchera “Plum Royal” and “Marvelous Marble.” The Ruffled Lime I planted last year have not reappeared.
• Several variegated Solomon’s seal (polygonatum biflorum). My friend Mary generously allowed me
• to dig up several transplants from her yard early in the week and I was able to get it in before the torrential rain this past week. It has doubled in height in the one week it has been in the bed.

Still to come: Caladium “White Queen,” Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra) “Aureola”, creeping jenny. And mulch, lots of mulch.

Dear readers, how does your garden grow?