Plants for Shade

What should you look for in choosing plants for shade? The answer depends on the type of shade you have together with an assessment of the soil conditions.  Help with choosing the right plants for shade.

 

Choosing plants for shade can be exhilarating or a waste of money depending on whether you have made the right choice. The right choice of plants for shade can mean that a neglected area of your garden becomes a delight to admire and easy to manage; but get it wrong and you will spend any amount of time trying to maintain a life support machine for something that has no future.
What should you look for in choosing plants for shade? The answer depends on the type of shade you have together with an assessment of the soil conditions. Plants for shade have characteristics which represent adaptations the plants have evolved to survive in low light conditions.

The general characteristics are:

Leaves shiny and evergreen

Aucuba japonica	Fatsia japonica	Hellebores	Hedera 'Gold Child'

Many shrubs that are grown in shady areas are evergreen and greenish in colour rather than silver. The leaves may be glossy, smooth and reflective to maximise light uptake.
Eg: Aucuba japonica, Buxus (box), Camellias, Fatsia japonica, Ilex (hollies), and Hedera (ivies).

Leaves large and leathery

Plants for shade which produce large leaves usually do this to maximise the amount of light they can receive as an adaptation to growing in low light conditions.
These plants are likely to originate from fairly moist areas, as water loss (transpiration) from large leaves is higher than from small leaves or spines, due to their large surface area.
EG: Acanthus mollis, Angelica, Begonia grandis subsp. evansiana, Bergenia, Hellebores and Rodgersia.

Leaves soft and delicate

Plants for shade include many of the woodland species that enjoy the high humidity and often have soft, delicate foliage that is easily damaged by bright sunlight and desiccation.
Eg: Asplenum, Chaerophyllum, Epimedium, Kierengeshoma and Matteuccia.

When choosing your plants for shade, try to avoid any plant with grey or silver leaves, or those with thick hair or woolly foliage. These characterisitics are typical of plants from hot, sunny conditions where the plants need to reflect excessive light and reduce transpiration and retain moisture as long as possible.

Plants with narrow or needle-like leaves, aromatic foliage

– including most of the varieties of herbs – or thick, waxy, succulent leaves, are all adaptations for survival in hot, sunny, and probably dry conditions. The very adaptations that suit these plants for living in hot, sunny conditions will be a disadvantage in plants for shade.

Shady gardens may have a gloomy feel to them and need brightening up by the addition of flowers and foliage. Well chosen plants can have the effect of making the garden seem larger and more appealing.
Some colours, especially bright yellows, lime-green, cream and white reflect light and make the area seem less dark and almost ‘illuminated’.
Dark greens, blues and reds are more light absorbent and therefore make less impact in darker conditions.

Use of foliage

When choosing plants for shade, colour of the foliage is more important than flower colour as few plants for shade provide a spectacular, long-lasting floral display as do their relatives adapted to life in full sun.
Flowers on plants adapted to shady conditions tend to be muted and more subtle.
As an alternative to a dramatic flower display you can choose attractively marked or coloured foliage. Plants for shade that have leaves of more than one colour (variegated) are adapted to absorb all the different wavelengths of light so they are more efficient at taking advantage of whatever light is available to them. Their leaves may be blotched, spotted in the centre or around the margin with cream or white, yellow, pink or red or varying shades of green. Other plants for shade have leaves of a single colour other than green, including blue, purple or yellow.

Most plants require some sun to bring out the brightest leaf colours, but some can be quite happy in muted light even if the leaf colour is not quite as pronounced. In shady areas the brightest variegation and leaf colours have the most impact, especially where the leaves are gold, cream or white.

There are many plants that look stunning in dark areas of the garden and plants for shade are not hard to find – so long as you know what you are looking for!