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From the Archives
Tips and Ideas for Planning a Shade Garden
I’ve mentioned before how shady my yard is. On our quarter-acre lot, we have three maples, a birch, a locust, an apple, and a Bradford pear tree. I’ve made a point of tucking edible gardens into any sunny spots we have, so the remaining shady areas are the more ornamental areas. I am not, in any way, shape, or form, a designer. I’m lucky if I manage to wear matching clothes every day (really…) So I turned to a variety of books and websites when I was looking for inspiration as well as plans for shade gardens.
Shade Garden Plans, Advice, and Inspiration
1. The amazing crew over at Gardening Gone Wild tackled shade gardening as part of their Garden Bloggers Design Workshop series. Check out their wrap-up post for plenty of advice, inspiration, plant selection ideas, and good information about growing a garden in the shade.
2. My About.com colleague Marie Iannotti offers a free plan on her site for a shade garden, complete with photos of suggested plants.
3. Better Homes and Gardens offers a free plan for a shade garden under mature trees on their website. (Note: you need to create an account to view the detailed plan. It’s free, and you’ll get access to a bunch of other garden plans when you register.)
4. BackyardGardener.com offers a plan for a circular garden under a tree. They sell the plants, but you can view the planting plan for free on the site.
5. Dayton Nursery has provided a plan for a 12′ by 20′ shade garden featuring hostas, brunnera, cimcifuga, and tiarella.
6. Fine Gardening has a wonderful list of plants that grow well in shady conditions.
7. If you’re a container gardener, this article from Fine Gardening offers plenty of inspiration and ideas for shady container gardening.
8. The University of Minnesota’s Extension Service has a useful table of annuals, bulbs, perennials, and edibles for shade gardens — this is very useful for getting you started.
9. UMN’s Extension Service also provides a great list of tall perennials for shade.
10. Iowa State University’s Extension Service has posted a list of suggestions for annuals to grow in the shade.
Books About Shade Gardening
Of course, as much as I love the web, there’s nothing quite like daydreaming with a good book, preferably one that is loaded with full-color photographs for ultimate inspiration. Here are a few of my favorites:
Making the Most of Shade: How to Plan, Plant, and Grow a Fabulous Garden that Lightens up the Shadows by Larry Hodgson is one of those books I could just spend hours staring at. Complete with photos, plant profiles, and quick tips for gardening in the shade, this is a good way to get yourself motivated to get your shade garden started.
Taylor’s Guide to Shade Gardening is basically a 0ne-stop resource for shade gardeners. Small enough to tuck into a bag for a trip to the nursery and full of enough full-color plates to keep you dreaming, this is a very useful book.
The Natural Shade Garden by Ken Druse is probably THE book that made me appreciate shade gardening. Druse explains the natural arrangement of a woodland garden: understory, middle, and overstory, and shows you how you can accomplish the same look in your own garden. If you want a naturalistic, informal shade garden, this is a good book to check out.
I hope these resources inspire you to get going on your own shade gardening project!