Gardening In The Shade

How to find the right place for a plant

And sometimes, frankly, we gardeners let our plants down.

In the early years of my ornamental gardening experimentation, I bought a lot of plants I liked a great deal and proceeded to … kill them.

No, I wasn’t traumatized by a Schefflera at a young age and attempting revenge. I had moved into a house on a “light challenged” lot, and I was trying to determine the limits of their shade tolerance … the hard way.

I subjected them to inadequate light, and, of course, they expired.

I feel kind of guilty about it now, but all that “horticide” did have a point: I learned that understanding how to interpret cultural recommendations for plants is key to successful gardening.

Thousands of column inches have been devoted through the years to the topic of “ right plant, right place .” In fact, a whole book — a good one — has been written about it.

The idea is a simple one: select plants by matching their needs to the growing conditions in the landscape.

At the simplest level, this means not putting plants that need good drainage in, say, the spot where the downspout empties. But in practice there’s a lot more subtlety to the concept.

Everyone knows that astilbes are shade plants, right?

Not quite. Here in Connecticut , to get a truly good floral display on astilbes, you need to grow them in at least half sun. Anything less, and the flowers get paltry and spotty.

So what gives?

In a word, latitude. Plants — even shade-adapted plants — need light, and the strength of the sunlight falling on any particular garden, as well as the number of hours per day the sun shines, depends on how far north or south the garden is.

As a broad generalization, in the South the sun shines more strongly over a longer part of the growing season than in the North. More sunlight means more energy available to sustain plant growth.

So, a plant that can get by very well with a lot of shade in the South because it’s still getting enough energy from the higher intensity (if indirect) light, might need a lot of direct sun in the North, where light levels overall are weaker. As you can see, the ideal situation for a plant can vary significantly depending on exactly where it’s grown.

But light levels are just one aspect of growing conditions.

Consider Alchemilla mollis, the extraordinarily beautiful lady’s mantle, a staple of many perennial gardens. Here in New England , lady’s mantle does beautifully in all but the hottest, sunniest locations.

Attractive Shade Plants for Pots | Northern Shade Gardening

Despite the cool June, the shade plants I’ve planted in pots have been blooming beautifully. I’ve chosen ones that produce lots of flowers all season long, or wonderfully large leaves for a tropical look. I especially like the tall Alocasia (elephant ear) or Zantedeschia (calla lily) for the centre of the planter. Their showy foliage adds height, while the other annuals provide lots of blooms. Technically some of these are not really annuals, but the tender perennials are treated as annuals in zone 3.

In the centre of the pot is an Alocasia x calidora (elephant ear) with heart shaped leaves and textured ribs. This hybrid has giant eye-catching foliage that add an exotic tropical look to the planter. These are growing a little slower than the Colacasia that I planted last year, and I think it is because our weather has been so cool for the past 6 weeks. We’ve had very few days that made it as high as 25º C (77º F). Still, they are wonderfully textured, with light green patterns and of course their size adds presence to a container.

The double pink flowers in this planter are Begonia ‘Solenia Light Pink’. Although the Solenia are a tuberous begonia developed for the hotter and sunnier climates, they have been doing fantastic in this part shade area through the cooler weather. The double tuberous begonias are great for a pot, since they flower right up until the frost, and you get a lot of petals per plant. These are a  shorter begonia, so they work well under the taller foliage at the centre. Solenia Light Pink begonias have darker, almost wine coloured foliage, which looks good next to the other green leaves in the planter.

Here is another pot that is very similar at the other end of my patio, getting the dappled light that is common for most of the day. It has the same Alocasia x calidora for a focus in the centre, and Lobelia erinus ‘Regatta Sky Blue’ billowing around the edges. The container also has a Begonia ‘Nonstop Pink’, a Fuchsia ‘Swingtime’, and Impatiens walleriana ‘Fiesta White’. I like the combination of giant leaves, surrounded by lots of double flowers. The fuchsia is very large and hangs down towards the right, so is mostly out of this shot, but I’ve got some more pictures of it down below. This container is loaded with flowers that extend almost 1 m (3 ft) across in a 45 cm (18 in ) pot, but they are all doing really well.

Gardening in the Shade

Gardening in the shade

Gardening in the shade

Gardening in the Shade

Gardening in the Shade