Just a few years ago, the words shade garden plants brought to mind hostas, ferns, impatiens and maybe some astilbe. Shady areas were viewed as a fine place to rest awhile on the garden bench, but not nearly as exciting as a sunny border.
Colorful garden plants for shade are still more limited than those for sun—especially now that impatiens no longer thrive in many areas due to a fast-spreading fatal disease. But foliage colors have exploded. And, oh, the possibilities! Today we can spice up our shade gardens with plants in bright lime, orange, pink, red, burgundy, purple, chocolate, near-black and every shade in between. Foliage plants are no longer considered accents: They are the foundation and the “flowers.”
Add Vibrant Foliage Plants to Shade Gardens
Today’s splendid palette lets us use foliage plants as we would blossoms, creating color combinations that last all season. Easy-to-grow coleus, for instance, now comes in an unbelievable selection of luscious colors, with leaves ranging from simple shapes to frilly ruffles, in heights from 8 inches to 3 feet. As a bonus, the flowers attract hummingbirds.
The tiny flowers of heuchera, or coral bells, attract hummers, too, but it’s the sumptuous apricot, caramel, rose, lime or plum leaves of the new varieties that steal the show in the garden.
Even ferns have left good old green behind. Take a look at the Lady in Red cultivar, with her lacy fronds and blood-red stems or silver and burgundy Japanese painted fern, or the autumn fern Brilliance, which starts out coppery pink in spring, turns green for summer, then colors up again for fall.
Create a Calming Shade Garden Design
It’s easy to get carried away and come home with one of everything. But instead of throwing them all together, give your fancy shade garden plants room to shine beside quieter companions. Remember that serenity is one of the best things about a shade garden. Keep that peaceful feeling by separating different kinds of variegated plants with plainer companions so the leaves aren’t fighting each other for the spotlight. Use dark-colored plants, such as Osiris Café Noir ligularia, Hillside Black Beauty actaea or Chocoholic cimicifuga to create “shadows” between your bright-colored beauties so your eyes have a resting place.
Playing with color is the new trend for gardening with full shade plants. Free your fuchsias from the hanging basket and partner them with smoldering red coleus for close-up hummingbird watching. Spice up summer with copper plant (Acalypha wilkesiana), Dragon Wings begonia, pink polka-dot plant and red fuchsias.
Add zing to serene green and white hostas and ferns with a pool of blue Summer Wave torenia and an unexpected dash of hot sauce from orange and pink coleus. Mix and match whatever tickles your fancy, combining annuals and perennials with foliage plants that echo or contrast with their colors. These are the perennial garden mistakes you’ll want to avoid.
Choose the Right Plants for Shady Areas
Sure, you can get technical, plotting the arc of the sun and keeping track of how many hours your shady yard gets direct light, in which part of the day, in every season. But if you have a shady part of the yard, you already know it. Most shade plants do best in part shade or light shade—the usual conditions, even in many forests. Partial shade means a few hours of sun every day; light or dappled shade, created by shifting leaves, may get no direct sun at all, but it gets a good amount of light.
Deep shade is an area where even indirect light rarely penetrates. It’s an uncommon situation, but you may have that, too, if you have buildings blocking the sun or other barriers. Most shade plants are very adaptable when it comes to the degree of shade they prefer. They’ll quickly tell you if you’ve guessed wrong. If they start looking weak and leggy, there’s not enough light. If their leaves crisp or curl or start looking bleached or browned, and you find yourself watering way too much, there’s too much sun. Move them, and try something that’s better suited to the original spot. By the way, this is the best time to water plants.
Garden centers make it easy by corralling shade plants into separate sections. Also stroll the shrubs and trees to seek out azaleas and rhododendrons, eastern redbud, dogwood, serviceberry, red-flowering currant and white sweetspire, all good bloomers in shade.
Consider houseplants, too. The filtered light in our houses is similar to outdoor shade, and croton, polka dot plant, Moses-in-the-boat, asparagus fern, Swedish ivy and abutilon (flowering maple) will thrive in the ground or in containers for a summer vacation. Here are some more low-light houseplants.
Colorful Shade Garden Plants to Try
Pink Shade Garden Plants
- Perennial: Astilbe, bleeding heart, fern-leaf bleeding heart, foxglove, Geranium cinereum ‘Ballerina’, hellebore, winter cyclamen
- Annual: Begonias, fuchsia, torenia
Red Shade Garden Plants
- Perennial: Astilbe, eastern and western red columbines, fire pink
- Annual: Fuchsia, begonias
Here are the top colorful flowers that attract hummingbirds.
Yellow Shade Garden Plants
- Perennial: Lamium Hermann’s Pride, kirengeshoma, ligularia, wood poppy, woodland sunflower, yellow corydalis
- Annual: Monkeyflower, tuberous begonia
Green Shade Garden Plants
- Perennial: Hellebore
- Annual: Nicotiana langsdorfii
Check out some of the best-smelling flowers for your garden.
Blue and Purple Shade Garden Plants
- Perennial: Blue wood aster, brunnera, Brookside hardy geranium, Jacob’s ladder, liriope, lungwort, monkshood, Phlox divaricata, Phlox stolonifera, Rocky Mountain columbine, Scilla siberica, toad lilies, Virginia bluebells
- Annual: Browallia, Summer Wave torenia
Psst—we found beautiful blue flowers for every garden.
White Shade Garden Plants
- Perennial: Astilbe, bear’s-breeches, Biokovo hardy geranium, hellebore, White Nancy lamium, lily-of-the-valley, snowdrops, tiarella, white wood aster
- Annual: Fuchsia, woodland tobacco (Nicotiana sylvestris)
Next, check out the top perennial vegetables that grow back each year.
The post The Best Plants for Your Shady Garden appeared first on Taste of Home.
Sally Roth