With four full-grown maples and an equally large birch in our garden, we just don't have enough sun for veg, and barely enough for most flowers. The most successful of my plantings this year is a group of hellebores, which apparently prefer to be in the dark.

Our neighbours across the street have only one big tree on their lot, overhanging their front windows. So the lucky buggers have what looks like a quarter-acre of raised beds in their back yard positively exploding with tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers and peas and zucchini and three kinds of beans up on poles -- I can just catch sight of the tips of the bean-pole tripods over their six-foot fence. Okay, I know that envy is a mortal sin, so I guess I'll just have to log a few centuries in Purgatory ...