Made in the Shade

Hi, I'm from Southcentral Alaska, and our home is in a wooded area about five miles from Resurrection Bay. Most of the beds along my yard are shaded by trees, and we don't wish to change this since it affords us privacy. Most of the gardeners in this area are familar with shade gardening, because our climate is overcast a good part of the time, and the soil is always cool. This restricts the varieties that do well here, but also allows us some real success stories. Our woods are filled with "fiddle ferns" that seem happy to come live on the shady side of our house. They can easily spread 4-5 feet across when in full foliage, so that pretty much speaks for the really shady side of the house! Another success story is goatsbeard, which is a weed around here. You find it along the shady roadsides, and it, too, is quite happy on the shady side of the house.

Many of the plants that most of you consider shade plants can be grown in full sun here. Visitors from the lower 48 often comment on the rich colors of my flowers, something I attribute to our milder climate. We are considered a zone 3 here, but some of our best plants are considered zones 4 & 5. Here are some of my favorite perennials & biennials for this area: delphinium, bleeding heart, columbine,campanula, primula, rock cress, dianthus, coral bell, cranesbill, english daisy, Jacob's ladder, lady's mantle, ligularia, lychnis, malva, blue poppy, oriental poppy, iceland poppy, pyrenthrum, trollius, spiraea, phlox, forget-me-not & fox glove...and more I've probably forgotten. What do you grow in your shady garden?

Maybe we could get some of your "fiddle ferns" in trades this spring.

"eyes"

eyes: I'll try anything once! I've never tried to send them in the mail, but it's worth a try. I don't know what they'd do in your climate. They grow naturally in the woods here, usually around rotting logs and tree stumps, where moss is found. If you want to try it, remind me in June...about the time the ground is really workable...CS

Weezin, I have many of the same things, and some different in a shade garden that is predominantly dappled, not deep shade. Ferns, alchemilla, heuchera, chelone, bergenia, hosta, arum, pulmonaria, polemonium, ajuga, myosotis scorpoides, lysimachia nummularia, clethra, astilbe, hydrangea, daphne, asarum, lamium, crinum, cranesbill geranium, digitalis, thalictrum, and trilliums, phlox divaricata, dicentra, etc.

As I create a new shade garden at the back of our property this spring, it's in open shade like you'd find at the edge of the woods. So I'll be adding several new native plants this year - solomon's seal (both the true and false), many new trilliums, tiarella, some new gingers, goodyera, claytonia, pachysandra, mertensia, bird foot violets, hepatica, anemonella, bellworts, azaleas, etc.

Come on spring - can't hardly wait!

I promised my DS I would help him and my DDIL with their very shady yard this spring. What would be the very easiest thing to grow and what would be good to use as a ground cover as they cannot get grass to grow way too much shade. Their yard is really big and the part they are wanting to make pretty is in front of the house and gets not much sun. I thought about Hostas and asked on the Hosta forum which variety would be the easiest to grow; I wonder if any hosta is easy to grow????? I have some English Ivy to start them off but how fast will it grow? How about Tihitian Wedding Plant? Any ideas?

Roz, hostas are easy to grow, but they're almost all irresistable to slugs :0) A few other ideas for shady sites:

Tiarella - they spread via stolons and some varieties can spready pretty quickly.
Pachysandra (there's a native "Alleghany Spurge" that could work,
Aegipodium/Bishop's Weed (it will grow almost too well - some consider it a weed)
Lamium will take some shade, and some varieties are more aggressive than others.

Re the ivy - given even halfway decent soil and fertilizer, it will definitely grow. Again, almost too good for some people's tastes.

Another approach is to limb up the trees, so the shade isn't so dense. Sometimes that's a viable option, depending on the type and size of the trees.

Thanks. They have several trees and a very large area; maybe it would be a good idea to plan a shade garden in the entire area. By the way, go-vols, congrats on the appmt to Garden Gate board. Just got my issue yesterday and read cover to cover already.