There is beauty to be found in shade gardens
Gardeners who have an abundance of shade and a paucity of direct sunlight are accustomed to planting species that favor foliage over flower. But it is rare that one receives high praise for the beauty of the shade garden, full as it is with leaves rather than stems covered with brilliant colors.
Visits last summer to several large public gardens in London and vicinity demonstrated how magnificent sunny gardens are when row after row fill the garden space with bloom. In the English manner, low growing plants front the space and are backed by rows of progressively taller plants until finally there is a magnificent, arching splendor of color that contrasts with the row in front.
Measured against such gardens, green foliage can seem boring. Like Kermit the Frog, “it’s not easy being green,” when everyone is taken in by rainbows. But there is more than green to consider.
First, not all foliage is green. Variegated leaf colors abound in a broad variety of plant selection. Green trimmed with white, cream, yellow and shades of green. Also hues of purple, blood red, yellows (bright and subdued), chartreuse, bronze, gray, silver and even brown if you include some ornamental grasses.
Second, not all foliage plants look alike. Leaf shapes include heart-shape, lancelike, round, wavy and puckered. And textures range from smooth and glossy to fuzzy. Leaves may be simple, palmate (like your palm), pinnate (alternating leaflets on a single stem), or bipinnate (opposite leaflets on a single stem).
Some foliage plants are evergreen; others die to the ground in late fall. Some grow tall; others stay short. Others reseed themselves and can become quite invasive if not managed. Others are very well-mannered. The choices are many to give a rich visual variety in the garden, even with bright colors.
When I began creating shade gardens, hostas, ferns and heucheras were the dominant plants. Wanting to collect diversity in each species, I paid little attention to some of the plant details I mentioned above. Now the hostas are booming. They are growing taller than I expected with leaves that challenge elephants’ ears. I didn’t appreciate the mature growth patterns of each plant selected. As a result, some of the companion ferns are struggling for daylight, and the smaller heucheras have been moved to save them.
As my interest in shade gardening grew, I added others like Solomon’s seal, in both the “real” (Polygonatum) and “false” (Smilacina) varieties. Both have become favorites. These elegant plants dominate with their graceful curving leaf-laden stalks.
This week in the garden
•Weed, weed, weed. The little heat we’ve had is making everything grow.
•Get the last of the tomatoes and peppers in the ground ASAP.
•Deadhead rhododendrons by snapping off the old flower just above the emerging leaf buds.
•Deadhead iris as they finish, but don’t dig the plants until late August if you need to move them.