Create a shady oasis | almost PERFECT Landscaping
Make the best of the shady spots in your garden or yard by planting a shade garden. You can have a lovely display of greens and colors on the north side of a house, under tree canopies or in a corner that gets little direct sunlight, in the spots you thought couldn’t support plants. Great shade gardens use varying plant heights and types, textures, and colors. Like a walk through a woodland, a planned and properly planted shade garden can be an oasis of cool, restful shade in the heat of summer.
Many people think that shade-loving plants don’t have much color except green. It’s true that hostas, ferns and mosses thrive in the shade, but many other plants with colorful and interesting blooms like to grow with a cool and shaded rootbed, but their foliage in the light, or in a semi-shaded area. White flowers and foliage seem to add a glow in a shady spot, as do varied shades of green.
Shade shifts daily, seasonally, and over time as trees grow. Carefully analyzing where and when shade occurs in your landscape is an important first step. Also, recognizing types of shade is important as some kinds of shade are suitable for growing plants while other types are very problematic. Sometimes difficult shade can be improved by lifting or thinning the tree canopy or large shrubs so more sun or indirect light can penetrate. Sometimes the best solution for difficult shade is to convert it to an outdoor garden room enhanced by seating, garden art, mulch, hardscape, colorful containers, a water feature, a birdbath, or other focal points.
Examples of Plants for Shade Gardens are show below
Specific plant information available on plant name accompanying image.
The garden plant Heuchera that we know as Coral Bells (Heuchera sanguinea) has been undergoing a lot of changes in the past few years. Ever since the introduction of ‘Palace Purple,’ there have been countless new introductions of coral bells, with ever more colorful leaves. You can still find the traditional green-leaved Coral Bells, with the charming coral bell-shaped flowers that hummingbirds love, but it has been joined by heuchera with leaves in shades of purple, rose, lime green, gold, and variegations in between.
lbe is a knockout plant, thanks to its ornamental, fern-like bronze-and-green foliage and its feathery plumed blossoms that look good both in season and dried for winter interest. Just make sure to keep astilbe moist, or its delicate foliage will scorch in the sun. Even if astilbes never bloomed, the healthy foliage of these plants adds wonderful texture and color to a garden. In spring, new foliage often emerges bright green with heavy blushes of bronze. These finely textured mounds of foliage maintain compact balls with no training needed. Come summer, these tight mounds are topped with fantastic spikes of feathery tridents in shades of pinks, reds, purples, and whites. These tall spikes of color command attention in a garden, but also work very well en masse with other plants. The flower spikes can even be left on the plants after blooming for added winter interest.
