A first step in planning a shade garden is an assessment of how much sunlight each part of the area receives daily during the growing season.
Deep shade is defined as 2 hours or less of sunlight. A sunny site receives at least 6 hours of sun. Morning sun is less intense than afternoon sun. A partially shaded area may have filtered sunlight throughout the day or 2 to 4 hours of morning sun followed by shade the rest of the day.
You can adapt a wonderful assortment of perennials to different types of shade. Master Gardener Ann Bartlett assembled a list of those in the display garden:
Arum provides year-round interest in the shade garden. The arrow-shaped leaves have prominent silver veins. The foliage appears in autumn, providing winter interest. Flowers resembling jack-in-the-pulpit are produced in spring. As summer approaches, the leaves and flowers die back, leaving stems of bright orange berries that last until late summer.
Astilbe thrives in partial to deeply shaded sites with consistent moisture. Its fernlike foliage is attractive throughout the growing season. In summer, long-lasting flower plumes in white, red, purple or pink are held well above the foliage. Some older cultivars may struggle with our humid heat, but there are many newer hybrids for our area.
Climbing clematis, treasured for its large flowers, thrives in bright shade and in sun. Seed pods add visual interest until frost. (The identity of the clematis happily growing on the trellis Carlton built for the Extension shade garden is a mystery. Gretchen says that it produces copious white flowers over the summer.)
Another flowering shade plant is the crested iris, a North American woodland native. Diminutive but tough, these blue, flowering iris reproduce by rhizomes to form dense mats of 6-inch plants.
Ferns are mainstays of any shade or woodland garden. The Extension demonstration garden has two evergreen native fern species. Christmas fern, so named because early settlers used it for holiday décor, reproduces by spores. Its fertile fronds die back while the sterile fronds remain green through winter. Shield fern is another clump-forming rather than spreading fern that remains attractive all year. Both of these ferns produce new foliage in spring and remain about 2 feet tall.
Hardy geranium (aka cranesbill) thrives in partial shade and full sun. The palmate foliage, which changes color in autumn, is attractively textured and sometimes aromatic. Blooming from late spring through summer in flowers ranging from pink to violet to blue, these plants are long-lived and trouble-free.
Hellebores are long-lived, bullet-proof plants, having no disease or pest problems. They bloom in late winter or early spring. The flowers may last up to 3 months depending on how quickly the weather warms up. Foliage is evergreen, providing year-round interest. Newer cultivars have large double flowers in an amazing array of colors.
Hostas are another mainstay of the shade garden. They come is a wide range of sizes, foliage textures, shapes and colors. They may be used in drifts or as accent plants, and they play well with other shade-loving perennials
Lily-of-the-valley is a tiny plant with only 2 or 3 oval leaves. In spring it produces a stalk of tiny white bell-shaped fragrant flowers. The plants multiply by rhizomes to form a dense ground covering mat.
Purple Heart, Transcantia pallida, thrives in full sun to part shade. A species of spiderwort, the purple heart’s rich purple foliage sets off small pink flowers. This plant works well in hanging baskets, defining a border or as a ground cover.
Woodland phlox, Phlox divaricata, another North American woodland native, bears blue blooms in April. It performs best with some direct sun, but it will flower in filtered shade. It self-sows or spreads by underground rhizomes.
River oats is a low-maintenance, clump-forming native grass that grows 2 to 4 feet tall. It has large, graceful seed heads. Its foliage and seed heads provide winter interest. In early spring, cut the clump back to about 4 inches. (River oats photo by Joseph E. Marcus, courtesy of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildlife Center)
Creeping saxifrage, is a shade-loving evergreen ground cover. The rosettes of lacy leaves may be dusted in white. The white or pink flowers are produced over several weeks from spring until early summer. This charming plant has many common names including strawberry saxifrage, strawberry begonia and strawberry geranium.
Solomon’s seal is another native woodland plant, grown in partial to full shade. It is grown more for its arching leaf-lined stems than for the white flowers that dangle beneath the foliage. It spreads quickly by underground rhizomes forming an attractive clump in 2 or 3 seasons.
Wood poppy, alo called Celandine poppy, is an easy-to-grow Eastern woodland native. Blooming in April and May, the bright yellow flowers are two inches across. The deeply cut foliage resembles that of bleeding hearts. Like other poppies, the foliage usually dies back by mid-summer, so it works well as a companion to ferns and other evergreen plants. (Wood poppy photo by Julie Making, courtesy of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildlife Center)
Note: You can see shade-loving plants at Reflection Riding Arboretum & Nature Center. Check the website for a list of plants available for purchase the Reflection Riding nursery.