Ideas for planting along a fence, partial sun

[NoGreenThumbs]

Hey everyone, I'm hoping to get some help on designing and implementing some ideas to spruce up an unused / open area along a fence line for next year. On a whim I tried planting some wild flower mixes, kind of late in the season.. started around late April. It didn't come out terrible, but didn't exactly have the wow factor that I was hoping for.. looks better than nothing though. It seems that out of the two seed mixes I used which were supposed to have 20+ varieties in each, I actually ended up with a few of the same types of flowers. Nothing too exciting.

So here's the details.. located in central Massachusetts, and the area gets partial sun, to almost no sun some days. There is also no accessible daily water source other than any rain, so watering would be limited to the initial phase of "lets get this going".

I don't have a green thumb but I can plant things. Ideally you could help me with some ideas for low maintenance flowers/plants/shrubs that are tolerant to the amount of sun they do / don't get, limited watering, and look good.



As you can see to the left of the tree basically gets zero sun. So that side would need something that thrives with almost no sun. What you can see there for flowers is what grew from the wild flower mixes, never really had any blooms. Surprised anything grew there as much as it has.

The right side of the tree did pretty well, but just didn't get a wow factor with colors. I also think to some extent that the direct sun it received through July/Aug was too much and burned / killed / wilted some of the flowers. It was very hot and very dry.

The area to cover extends to the right in the picture about another 15 feet or so.

I'm also open to continuing the wild flower idea. So some ideas with that I've had are just waiting to see what happens next spring... see if anything comes up on it's own again... the seeds were mixes of annuals and perennials so I'd expect something might happen on it's own if any flowers drop seeds or regrow from roots.

As for prepping the area this fall ... thinking of either just leaving everything as it is, and how they fall, with very little cleanup... to maybe waiting until a good freeze and then mowing over the area to clean it up a little bit (read this online).

I've also got a little bit of seed mix left that I have in the refrigerator that I will throw down in the fall in an attempt to trick the seed into blooming earlier because the refrigerator acts like a winter season for the seeds that germinate after 2 seasons or whatever ... read that online also... as you can see I don't know anything about gardening

So can you help me with any ideas here? Or am I SOL with the whole sun / water issue?

Thanks.

 

[NoGreenThumbs]

No ideas or thoughts?

 

[The Preserver]

Not really a suggestion for your project (as such) but, it is important to remember that even plants/trees that are considered to be drought tolerant only become so after they have had some time to get established to the area in which they are planted. As far as I am aware, there are no "plant it and forget it" options. Anything that you do plant will require a little bit of dedication and TLC in the early stages (say 2-3 years). If you can't provide any care for your plants in even the minimum amount required, then gardening may not be for you.