Shady characters - a permanent home for shade garden suggestions!

[shovetheholly]

Because we get the question about what will grow in the shade so often, posts about it sometimes don't get many answers. So I thought I'd make a permanent thread that we can point people to when this comes up. I know some of you have written the same thing 10 or 20 times before, so hopefully this will save the repetition!

I'm hoping we can post some pictures of shade plants here so that people can see what they look like. A lot of them aren't all that familiar. Plus, I love pictures!!

I have a couple of the Digitalis x mortensis foxgloves in my front garden. The colour of them was lush, a real reddish tinted peachy pink. I hope they do as well this year.

I went looking down by the shore houses for Garrya elliptica but couldn't find it. But it was such a long time ago, nearly thirty years, so I'm not really surprised.

I love Angelica. It is just SO huge and SO fast-growing. I can't imagine why it's not grown more as a fun plant for kids - perhaps it's because it takes two years instead of one season?

I love the 'Crimson fans' mukdenia. It's rare to find leaves that so reliably go a lovely crimson. I grow blood grass Imperata cylindrica 'Rubra' in partial shade, which is another really bright red - though when it's not in full sun the base of the leaves tends to stay green (I actually prefer this, though). Looks great back-lit by the sun.

That's wonderful !! Does it stay like that all year round? It would look great with winter sun coming through it.

I like this Miscanthus 'Afrika', the colour stays all winter.

I'm planning this for my sunny 'hot' colour bed, I hate it when a garden looks dead and brown in winter, hence I have a huge list of plants that are winter-flowering and/or of winter interest.

No, I'm afraid it shrivels up pathetically in winter, alas, to a non-descript brown. It's tremendously exciting when it reemerges the next spring and gradually goes red, but it won't give you the interest you're looking for over winter. I know exactly what you mean about things looking dead - I get so sad when the leaves come off the trees. I think it's particularly important in a shady garden, because the seasons tend to come a couple of weeks later than on the sunnier side.

I really struggle with grasses in my garden. I have some Deschampsia in the sunniest spot, but it never looks completely happy, and neither does the green-and-white evergreen Carex 'Ice dance'. My black Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens' struggles on, but is miserable.

I have had more success with variegated Hakonechloa, which is a lovely yellow for the growing season and has this strange lying-down form, and with Pheasant-tail grass, Anemanthele lessoniana, which DOES keep its form and beautiful variety of coppery red colours over the winter and is far more upright. I've also had far more success than I would like with the evergreen woodland grass Luzula sylvatica, which just looks a mess for most of the year and self-seeds profusely. I am now battling to eradicate it!!

I like the Carex, (well, I like them all) but the others look suspiciously dead in the winter.
I can just hear Carol Klein talking about the "wonderful biscuit tones" of wintertime grasses, but I just think, "NO Carol - they are DEAD."

Obviously they regrow in spring, they're just dormant, but it's the look I can't bear.

Carex morowii 'Everest' and your 'Ice Dancer' are listed as dry shade plants, I think they might brighten up the ends of my shady bed...

I finally got around to buying those plants from Ebay. Will report back and let you all know how they do. I have on order

• pratia penduculata
• disporpopsis pernyi
• dodecatheon 'alba' (this is breathtaking)
• peucadanum ostruthium

Would be interested to hear from anyone who's grown the pratia. It sounds like so much of a thug that it belongs in a pot!! But maybe I'm overreacting?

Ajuga reptans Arctic Fox, beautiful variegation...

Looking at the Pratia on other sites, I don't think you're overreacting - this plant seems terribly invasive and difficult to eradicate. Maybe it would behave in a pot but you would have to be vigilant and watch out for it seeding elsewhere.

My garden has ground elder and lesser celandine, so I'm apt to shudder when I see reports of thuggery...

This is the Ajuga isn't it? Shame it's not more widely available or grown

I think it's virulently rhizomatous, so if I plant it in one of those wide, shallow terracotta saucers, it should stay put as it just won't be able to get out into other soil! Really glad I checked it out before putting it in the ground, though.

Oh gosh shove , another one I hadn't realised was a bit too rampant for its own good! It is pretty, but yes, clearly it needs to be in a container. There's nothing worse than being over-run by something sneaking around in the earth - at least with mass seedlings you can hoe them out or flamethrower them

That's the Ajuga, Noodles, I have 'Burgundy Glow' which is lovely too, but I think I'll have this with the Liriope popping around it and some nice Heuchera...

I'll be waiting with bated breath to see what your plants are like when they arrive, shove, especially the Dodecatheon and the Peucadanum

Hi - might I get some recommendations for plant/s for a container in a shady spot?

We're in an upper flat and can't see our garden from our flat .We can see the footpath down to the garden and I like to plant up some pots to encourage me .It'a narrow space with fences either side .

I think I'm looking for something with foliage ,maybe the angelica ? that would soften the path and fence combo and have sufficient impact when viewed from my kitchen window above ?
Something evergreen with white flowers that wouldn't mind being in a planter all year ?

I don't know ....

Hi ginger! Are you on dry or wet soil? And how keen a gardener are you - are you looking for low maintenance or a bit more of a challenge?

I would start with evergreens for shade - they'll give you something to look at all year. Things like viburnum tinus, fatsia, bamboo, mahonia (make sure it's clump-forming NOT invasive) photinia are really easy if you're not an experienced gardener. You can then put in hardy perennials for some spring, summer and autumn flowers! Ground cover is your friend if you're pushed for time - it really cuts down on maintenance.

There are lots of recommendations early in the thread.

I'm absolutely not experienced . I think my request is a tiny bit niche - it's for shade loving plants to go in containers down the path ( only bit of my garden that's visible from my upper flat ) to my garden ...

Your posts are always so helpful Holly ,I love reading them !

I planted dodecathon outside 2 years ago roundabout now, after maud planted some in her garden. Mine died and now when I get young plants, I pot them up first and put them outside in my garden before planting them out the following year. The survival rate seems to be much better. Perhaps its because the growing conditions in ones' own garden may be very different to what the plant has been used to.
Carol Klein visited a shady woodland garden and the epimediums and trilliums were looking good. Monty has planted tiarella: 'quietly draws you in though will never sing from the rooftops' was what he said. But very useful for planting at the edges of shrubs he said.
Tiarella would be a good shade loving plant in a container. It flowers for a long time, even through early summer
Ferns are also good,

Clematis armandii might also do in a pot, and lily of the Valley.

Thank you funnyperson .Some lovely suggestions -dodecathon particularly .

I had wondered about tiarella .Never thought of ferns ,but what a good idea .

Feeling quite hopeful now .

ginger- One nice thing to do might be to have the same plant in the same pot repeatedly down the garden. This can really draw your eye and it gives a surprising amount of structure. Something like a simple box ball repeated over and over would do well - you can stagger them on alternate sides if space is tight. If you have some cash, these can be bought for around £10-15 at places like Aldi and Lidl. If you don't, you can normally get a pack of 6 small box plants for around £5 at a garden centre. They will be small and shapeless, but you can grow them into something much larger if you have just a bit of patience! If you're good at craft, they can be pruned into all kinds of topiary shapes.

Alternatively, a slightly more expensive plan would be the same idea with standards- something like a variegated holly, clipped into a lollipop, where you could really see the white/gold colours against the green from your upstairs?

You could think about a climber for deep shade for the fence, too - would soften it up a bit! One thing I did with a dark corner of my last garden was to buy lots of junk shop mirrors for a few quid and put them up, surrounded by a couple of shade-loving climbers. It just lifted the light enough to help the climbers, and looked pretty too. I am banned from doing this in my current garden as DH is a modernist

A bigger job would be to pull up existing flags/concrete and lay a new path with gaps for ground-cover plants. This really greens up a space, but is more work!

funny - I shall bear your advice in mind with the dodecatheon . Perhaps a pot would be safer for the first bit?

In totally unrelated news, I have just seen that my blue meconopsis have made it through the winter and are pushing up some very hairy leaves!

That's marvellous news about the meconopsis shove - it's always nice a relief to see them popping back up.

Is it deep shade, ginger? I love heucheras, I have lots of them. They do well for me, even in partial shade. There is a new variety called 'Thomas', which has purple veining on the green leaves, but the most amazing long waving flower stems with huge cream flowers. They would look great in pots.

Hi. I have a really boring brand new garden that needs lots of input. It is south facing so gets lots of sun (photos taken about 5 mins ago) but the fence on the west side obviously provides lots of shade. The far right corner of pic 1 is almost constantly in shade.

I want to create some borders and would welcome any ideas / advice for the shady parts.

Ta

How long have you lived there crikey? And where are you, just roughly, in the country?

The reason I ask is that - to state the obvious (sorry!) - the sun is higher in the sky in the summer. So a south-facing area that is shaded by a fence from, say, autumn to spring can become much brighter in the summer because the sun beams down over the whole area more. In turn, that means that plants that like deep shade will get too much sun and be unhappy. My guess is that this might be the case with your very promising new garden! If I am right about all this, then plants that like partial or dappled shade - and probably drier conditions - might work better for you.

We have been here since last July (but 6ft side fence only up since Sept.

We are north west England. Clay soil with the prevailing wind coming from the west (about 8 miles from the coast but by much between us and it to stop the wind!

OK, so it probably won't be baking hot in the summer, but your shade might get sun in the morning-early afternoon in June/July! I would go for sun plants down the east side and the kind of plants that tolerate light shade down the other, but nothing that will burn if it gets hot and there's no cover (so no to a lot of ferns, ligularia etc).

So basically what I am saying is that the kind of things you can grow are probably not the kind of plants we've mentioned on this thread so much - a lot of the things on here like it very shady or very wet, so quite specialist conditions. The good news is that the garden centre is really your oyster because a much wider number of things will survive in your much lighter shade- you should be able to get away with things like stachys, aquilegia, geraniums like rozanne that are happy in sun/light shade (be careful because some like to be baked and other like shade), astrantias, echinops, paeonies, sanguisorbas, some of the persicarias, thalictrum, crocosmia, japanese anemones etc.

If you go on a really good nursery site, like Crocus, and search for 'light shade' there are gazillions of options