New shady plants and replanting succulents

To celebrate the spring equinox, I took my pup to the beach with a friend, and then we went to East Bay Nursery to pick up some shade-loving plants. (Of course, I couldn't resist picking up a few new succulents as well.) For the past few months I've been frowning at the patch of dirt between the stairs at the front of the house and the garage. The spot could really use some greenery to spruce it up, but we use it as a walkway, and it doesn't get any direct sunlight. So I needed a shade-loving ground cover, and I figured I'd add a fern as well. I found just the thing at EBN! (Click to see the picture come up in a larger size.)

The four diamond-shaped patches are low-growing Corsican mint, which I hope will spread out quickly. The little circles in back are a moss that grows in a pretty mound shape. And there's the potted fern. (And also in the back, the new little succulents.) In the middle are ceramic tiles I picked up at Urban Ore. You can see there's still another dirt patch to the left. I'll probably end up doing something similar on that side, but I'll have to save up for more tiles and plants.

After that, it was time to finally, finally replant my succulents. I'd been meaning to do that for months. In fact, I've been neglecting them in favor of carefully tending my edible garden in the back yard, and the succulents are out of sight, out of mind up on the upper deck. They suffered frost damage back in December:

...and then I got a frost cover for them but forgot to remove it for weeks and they burned:

...and recently leaf miners have done a number on them:

I don't even know what happened to this one - it was going strong for two years, and suddenly it lost all of its "petals" and turned black on the inside:

But! Some are stronger than ever:

And others are blooming:

I got all of the smaller succulents planted into one communal bin, and the bigger ones will be transplanted tomorrow or over the weekend. I worked until it was too dark to continue, so pictures of that will come later. But I can leave you with this sunset:

Happy spring equinox!