suggestions for nice things to grow in a shady bed

[littlefrog]

I'd really like to try and get our shady bed a bit sorted out this winter, and I wondered what people would suggest. We've got a long thin town garden, and it's a northeast wall, which gets quite a good bit of midday sun in the summer, but a lot less in the winter. Soil is still pretty rubbish (clayey, with bits of lime mortar that have fallen out of the walls) despite quite a lot of manure etc.

It's about 40 ft by 4-6ft, so a substantial size; the wall behind is about 4-5ft high. Currently we have a viburnum, with some rather sad hellebore under it; an foolish camellia (it flowers downwards, even after staking, so you don't get to see them much); an old passion flower, and then some elderly roses, a large clump of some kind of daisies, and rampant forget me not, aquilegia, evening primrose, poppies.

What would you suggest to give the bed good 'bones'? We need more foliage plants, and stuff that looks good at different times of the year.

Any good advice sites anyone can recommend?

Thank you!

My first thought mushrooms ..... then I realised that you were talking gardening not sleeping bed.

Hydrangea (sp?) does well in shade, and you could try climbing ones for the wall. Also shrub such as pirrhus (again not sure of spelling!) might work, it's an evergreen and has nice foliage. Ferns are good woodland plants for really shady places and give good green coverage, though won't change colour during the year.

Try RHS site for ideas.

Are you fussy about colour?

Alchemilla Mollis, Cat Mint and Johnson's Blue geraniums look superb together and seem unbothered by waterlogged soil and not too much sun.

Hydrangeas are also good in semi shade so long as the soil is moist.

And Lavender seems to do well for me in some surprisingly shady spots.

Mock Orange?

Hellebore sounds fed up. You could try moving it?

I would firstly get some decent shrubs in the bed for form and structure.

There are various scented Viburnums which do well in shade,
Osmanthus (evergreen and scented flowers in spring)
Christmas Box (e-green and scented flowers in winter)
Pittosporum (e-green, flowers in summer),
Skimmia (e-green with flowers in winter)
Portuguese Laural (e-green with white flowers in summer I think)

I recommend the RHS book "Plants for Places" (only £6 on Amazon) for ideas and inspiration on what to plant where, it has suggestions for eg plants for North/East facing border, plants for shade, plants for pots,plants for hedges etc, etc.

I have found these websites useful/inspiring:
www.rhs.org.uk/
www.shootgardening.co.uk/
www.plantsforshade.co.uk/index.html
and
www.turning-earth.co.uk/

There are loads of nice perennials and bulbs for shade but I wouls get these in after the shrubs.

ALso worth looking in your local library for gardening books.

If you can find a really good landscaper who knows about plants they could help you work out a layout/planting plan and it sounds as if you need to do more work on renovating the soil before you do any planting.

And by the way, I'd suggest you take the camellia out and plant in a large pot with ericaceous compost, as they need acid soil to thrive (clay soil containing lime mortar will be too alkaline).
Also they do not do well in east facing borders (they need to avoid morning sun) so best to move it to a part of the garden which doesnt get the morning light.

Thank you for the plant and website ideas, I'll have a look at the ones you've suggested.

Pannacotta, that's really interesting about the camellia - maybe it would do better in a pot. Have to say I don't love it at all though, so maybe we'll pot it and freecycle it... belonged to our predecessor. It seems happy enough where it is though, it just has this infuriating habit of drooping, so that the flowers lie in the mud if you don't prop them up.

On the soil improvement, how are you meant to do it when you already have things in the beds? We have bluebells and snowdrops, lily of the valley, primroses, as well as honeysuckle and clematis and the big things I mentioned before. I'm concerned that in digging in grit/manure we'll kill the things i like...

It's big things we need just now, not the bulbs and underplanting - so any more suggestions of favourite plants would be great!

The camellia will do so much better in a pot than planted in the wrong soil, they look much nicer when in the right soil and this should prevent the flowers from drooping (which is prob due to wrong growing conditions, we had one in the soil which looks so much happier now it's in a pot, also they are evergreen so nice to have some year round interest).

You can improve the soil even when the bed is planted, adding either compost or manure will help.

Other nice shrubs for shady borders are
Choisya
Winter's Bark
Mahonia
Garrya Eliptica
Holly
Box
Aucuba
Eleagnus
Euonymus
Euphorbia
Pyracantha
Cotoneaster