Gardening: Creative placement of right plants can create colorful shade garden

Shady garden areas are a challenge for most gardeners. As a result, they are often spaces that require the most creativity when it comes to designing an interesting garden.

I live on a north-facing slope surrounded by pine and fir trees that effectively create a lot of dappled sunlight through the day. As a result, I need to be selective about what I plant, particularly in my backyard that gets maybe two hours of full sun in the middle of the day. Most sun-loving perennials need five to six hours of full sun to do well. So how did I liven up the space when I did a remodel a couple of years ago?

I had to remodel the garden because over the decades we’ve lived here the trees have grown taller and what was once a sunny area is now shaded except for that burst of midday sun. So, the first thing was to transplant any remaining sun-loving plants to sunnier spots. I did leave some iris and daylilies because their spiky leaves added interest. Other plants I left were a generous colony of ever-spreading sweet woodruff groundcover, two Japanese maples, a dogwood and miscellaneous daffodils and ornamental alliums. Tulips, crocus and other bulbs would have been left if the deer didn’t devour them.

Since there is a limited selection of shade tolerant flowering plants, I turned to plants with colorful foliage and texture to add accents. I chose to plant large masses of each variety to keep the plan simple. The existing woodruff is a medium green with a white flower in the spring to which I added several varieties of lamium that have mottled green, purple and white leaves with a bonus of pink flowers in the spring. Several bunches of lamb’s ears and yellow Japanese forest grass rounded out the groundcovers. For midheight plants I chose epimedium, foxgloves, pulmonaria, spurge, hellebores and bergenia as starters. I’ll add some golden bleeding hearts and Bowles Golden carex this spring for more yellow color. For large volume plants I chose ligularia, rogersia and peonies for their leaves and low-growing Oregon grape as an evergreen. Interestingly, there is a shade tolerant woodland peony that gets about a foot tall with white flowers that flourishes in medium shade. It’s hard to find even online but would be worth looking for. Astilbes, hostas and white hydrangeas would also be good choices.

Plants are not the only things that can add color and texture to a shady garden. Fences and trellises can be painted bright colors. Colorful pieces of art can be added, especially those that move in a breeze. How about a brightly painted mailbox that could hold a few gardening tools? Colorful garden furniture can also add color, which in my case was two red chairs in a sitting space at the end of the garden. If you are interested in garden art, check out this Saturday’s Garden Expo at the Spokane Community College campus which draws in many of our local artists.