With so many hardy shade plants available, there's no reason why your shady garden can't look just as attractive as a sunny garden. Interesting plant combinations, plants with variegated foliage or interesting shapes and a few plants that actually flower in the shade are ways to make your shady garden glow. Plants in shade need special care to ensure that they get enough water because tall trees can prevent rain from reaching the ground.
Most ferns are hardy and do well in shady gardens. For example, southern maidenhair fern (Adiantum capillus-veneris) may look delicate, with small fan-shaped fronds, but it is an easy-to-grow plant and very durable. It grows well in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 7a through 11 in either full or partial shade. Western sword fern (Polystichum) is also hardy in shade in USDA zones 5b through 10b. It may eventually have up to 100 fronds.
Grasses and Grasslike Plants
Like ferns, many grasses can grow in shade, partial shade or sun. Japanese forest grass (Hakonechioa macra “Aureola”) grows in USDA zones 5b through 10b. Its chartreuse leaves light up the shade and contrast well with plants in all other colors. While not a grass botanically speaking, “Ice Dance” sedge (Carex morrowil) has grasslike leaves that grow in clumps 1 foot tall and 3 feet wide. It is as tough as Japanese forest grass in USDA zones 5b through 10b.
Long grown as a houseplant, cast-iron plant (Aspidistra elatior) also thrives outdoors in partial and full shade of USDA zones 7a through 11. Its long, glossy leaves, often with parallel white veins, grow closely together in large clumps. Cast-iron plant earns its name from its long-lived and very hardy nature. With large, deeply lobed green leaves tinged with white, bear's breeches (Acanthus mollis) does well in sun, partial shade or full shade in USDA zones 7 through 10. Bear's breeches grows in 3-foot-wide mounding clumps and produces tall spikes of white, rose or purple flowers.
Wild ginger (Asarum caudatum), with heart-shaped leaves from 2 to 7 inches wide, forms a carpet of bright green in either full or partial shade in USDA zones 7a through 10b. It is an evergreen in mild climates. Dwarf periwinkle (Vinca minor) also forms a reliable carpet of green – with dark green, shiny leaves and small blue or white flowers in the spring. It grows from sun to full shade in USDA zones 5b through 10b.
- The New Sunset Western Garden Book; Kathleen Norris Brenzel, ed.
- Fine Gardening: Plant This, Not That; Fine Gardening editors
- Fine Gardening: Acanthus Mollis "Tasmanian Angel" (Bear's Breeches)
- Thinkstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images