Shade Gardens — Shade Plants — Shade Garden Colour

Shade gardens can be a challenge for some gardeners and an exercise in frustration for others — all that green and nary a spot of colour. So how do you transform frustration into joy? How do you avoid cutting down all those environmentally critical trees and create a spectacular, shady space filled with colourful shade plants? The first thing you do is this — start seeing shade plants in a different way. Colour in the shade isn’t just about vivid blooms. It’s about colourful leaves with great texture and shape.

So here are some perennial shade plants and shrubs that will guarantee colour, visual variety and minimum fuss in the shade.

Shade Plants for a Colourful Shade Garden

1. Brunnera Macrophylla: A fantastic border plant for the shade, Brunnera Macrohphylla, aka Siberian Bugloss, creates lovely drifts of small blue or white flowers in the spring, and some varieties deliver great leaf colour all season long. Particularly beautiful are “Jack Frost” and “Langtrees,” which feature silver-splashed leaves. Plant in groups of 3 to 5 for maximum punch.
2. Perennial Geraniums: The true, hardy Cranesbill Geraniums are fantastic shade plants. But don’t confuse them with the fussier pelargonium. The real cranesbill features lovely leaves and joyous sprays of creamy white, pink or purple flowers in late spring, early summer. Propagate by cutting one of the thick, brown stems (leaves attached) and root in water or just put it in the soil. Nine times out of ten it will root on its own with lots of watering.
3. Astilbe: Feathery, fernlike leaves that provide great texture in the shade garden, their tall to medium-sized flower spikes provide a feathery burst of red, pink or white, in mid to late summer. Give the Astilbe loose, loamy, water-retaining soil and lots of shade, and you’ll soon be dividing-up this shade-lover and planting it throughout your garden.
4. Hostas: King of the shade garden, Hostas are all about leaf colour and shape. This hardy shade plant features leaves in all sizes, from giant to the new miniature-leafed varieties. Better yet, Hostas come in various leaf colours ranging from green to green edged in white, blue-green or yellow to the reverse — yellow, white or blue-green, edged in emerald. A fantastic plant for the shade.
5. Foxglove/Digitalis: This tall biennial just loves the shade, and its heavy, bell-shaped flowers bloom on spikes that can reach as high as six feet, providing spectacular summer colour. Most foxgloves will self seed, but to ensure its place in your shade garden, harvest the seeds and plant them in a starter bed every summer then rotate them back into the garden. Your efforts will be rewarded.
6. Ferns: From the giant upright Ostrich to the small, purple and silver leaves of the Japanese Fern, you simply cannot have a shade garden without these shade-loving plants. With their many shapes, sizes, textures and subtle leaf shades, ferns are an asset in any shady space.

Shade Shrubs for The Shady Garden

1. Bleeding Hearts: Perhaps the most under-rated of all shade plants, the elegant bleeding heart or dicentra, deserves pride of place at the back of any shade bed. Its shade loving flowers range in colour from hot to pale pink and pure white. The only hitch is late summer die-back, but the shadier and more consistently moist its location, the longer its greenery will last. Also available in dwarf varieties, suitable as edging plants, that last and bloom all season long — a big bonus!
2. Hydrangeas: Available in varieties suitable for almost any growing zone, this shade shrub comes in different heights, sizes and at least two bloom shapes. Hydrangea varieties featuring the big, pom-pom blooms come in a full range of colours from white, pink, purple to true blue. A fantastic shade plant.
3. Rhododendrons, Azaleas: These gorgeous zone 6 to 10 shade-shrub-cousins produce magnificent blooms in colours ranging from white and yellow to purple, red and pink. Rhododendrons and Azaleas like acidic soil, so unless you’re planning to plant them under a stand of pine trees, invest in a good fertilizer and toss it on the ground in a circle around the outer-most leaves to ensure it reaches the feeding roots. Big rewards will follow!