Previously Megan and I identified next year’s planting project: our side steps.

While planting won’t happen until next year, getting ready for that starts now, and the first task is measuring and mapping the space.

I also want to measure the light conditions so I have more than my hunch to go on when choosing plants. I was pretty confident in this year’s planting being in deep shade, but the side steps could have some gotchas. It’s on the north side of the house and is largely covered by tree canopy, but late in the afternoon it gets some sun as it goes down through a gap in the trees.

My plan is to put white marking flags every square foot three or four times throughout the year, spring, summer, fall, and maybe winter, and every hour note which flags are in the sun and which are in the shade. I don’t know if winter matters since plants are dormant then, so I may skip that season. With our deciduous trees, there may be sections that get more light in spring than summer. That could affect our options for spring ephemerals.

I’ve already mapped the sunlight for summer. Every single square foot had sunlight at least sometime during the day, and some had three hours! None had over three consecutive hours of light. Most had less than three hours of consecutive light.

In addition to fall’s sunlight mapping, I would like to go ahead and cultivate, condition, and mulch the planting areas this year.