May 31
Most of the gardening we’ve done up to this point has been for a practical purpose- food. We’re at the point now that we’re beginning to add some permanent landscaping purely for aesthetic reasons.
This project tackled a small area in the front of the house along the driveway. The 3 difficulties were 1) finding ground cover that would spread but was also visually appealing and 2) finding varieties that would thrive with next to no sun under mature pine trees 3) of course the obvious need for frost tolerant, hardy plants.
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May 30
While doing some brush clean up I found a few attractive ground covers which seem to be thriving with no human attention. I took pictures with the intention of later doing some research to identify them. A few nights later while watching a TV show I stumbled on the answer- Miners Lettuce! and what a pleasant surprise it was.
Miner’s Lettuce (Claytonia) is native of the west coast, grows well in cooler climates, and is a very hardy lettuce variety. Big shock here- it was eaten by miners which is how it got it’s name.
Some seed suppliers offer this variety but lucky for us it grows here naturally!