Plants That Will Grow in the Shade

I have many of these plants growing in shady spots of my garden, which encouraged me to create this article. It's common for people to assume that all plants want full sun, but as you'll see from this list, there are many beautiful, flowering plants that love the shade or dappled sunlight. These plants and shrubs do not require abundant sunlight to thrive, and they actually do much better with less light and heat.

1. Black Lily
2. Bluebells
3. Hydrangea
4. Primula and primrose
5. Cotoneaster
6. Pieris
7. Virginia Creeper
8. Fern
9. Buddleia
10. Pansies

People always ask me if lavender is the type of plant that you can grow in the shade. While there are some varieties that do better in shadier parts of the yard, generally lavender needs a lot of sun exposure, and it should not be planted in the shade.

If I had a gothic garden, I would plant black lilies for a gloomy effect. As you can see, the black lily is not truly black, but a deep purple. It has a surprising number of alternative names, including but not limited to Dragon Arum, Black Arum, Voodoo Lily, Snake Lily, Stink Lily, and Dragonwort.

Why "stink" lily? Regrettably, this epithet is accurate. The plant does have a distinctly unpleasant smell. That's not the only disadvantage. The black lily only flowers for a few days.

So why bother to give the black lily valuable space in your garden? Because it is spectacularly beautiful in full bloom. It looks almost eerie in an oppressive sort of way, and the leaves have an architectural majesty which gives shape and definition to a dark corner of the garden. And, as the flower dies, there is a short burst of reddish-yellow seedpods before the whole thing wilts, collapses, and looks awful. Work it out: Three or four months of pleasure and anticipation as the sculptured leaves develop and a burst of glory for a week, followed by a month of ignominy and then it's gone until the following year when it is likely to have multiplied.

I think it's worth it. My mother-in-law gave me my first black lily fifty years ago, and I am still growing them. My children grow them too, and no doubt so will my grandchildren, if I have a say.

Did you know that English bluebells (as opposed to the more common Spanish bluebells) are dying out and are a protected species? It's partly to do to reduction of forest land, as bluebells are woodland plants. Perhaps part of the decline is also due to global warming and environmental changes.

English bluebells are now commonly hybridized with the Spanish type and are losing some of their characteristics.

Any of these characteristics can be a sign of hybridization:

• Stems upright and not nodding.
• Flowers borne on more than one side of the flowing stem.
• The flower is more open and bell-shaped and does not have a long and more-or-less parallel sided tube.
• The anthers, at least when young, are blue or cyan and not white or cream.
• The leaves are broader.
• The scent is less strong and less sweet.

So, in a way, we have a duty to encourage English bluebells where we can. I have always had bluebells in my garden but have only just identified them as the English variety, so I occupy the moral high ground here. It would be socially responsible to grow them if you have a shady border. I recently even planted some around the tree which grows in our road, outside my house.

Bluebells grow to about 9" (22 cm) high and flower in late spring for a couple of months. They come in a range of blue tones, from white to pale and bright blue and have a strong, sweet smell. These plants die back in early summer, so you may want to plant them close to late-flowering plants which will grow up around them and conceal the dying leaves.

There are many different varieties of hydrangea, including small and large shrubs and strong climbers. They all do well in dappled shade.

Hydrangeas bear large heads of multiple florets in white, pink, or blue. You can actually change their coloring by the addition of chemicals. They have quite a long flowering period throughout summer and well into autumn, so they are what I would call "good value" plants.

Primulas and primroses come in a wide range of bright colors. There are many types of primrose, from the tiny wild ones to the great, big, F1 Hybrid primroses, which sometimes revert to smaller types in their later flowering years.

I have some tiny, wild, purple primroses, which grow in my rockery but the ones shown above are F1 Hybrids. They come up in spring and flower for about two months. They are perennials and come up year after year, as long as you don't let them dry out.

A cotoneaster attracts birds and bees. They like half-shade or dappled-shade. The plant bears red berries for much of the year, and the tiny leaves are evergreen. A cotoneaster has an attractive branching habit. You can shape and train it to spread up and along a wall, so it looks good at the back of a border.

The leaves of the pieris change color as they grow. They start off red in spring and then later turn green and shiny. They have tiny, rather insignificant flowers. They like dappled shade. My pieris has never grown more than about two-feet tall and three-feet across, but I have seen other pieris shrubs which are a lot larger than this.

Virginia creepers will climb up 50 feet with no problem. They are vigorous climbing vines that start off green and turn a brilliant shade of red in autumn.

You can see that they sometimes climb right up the side of a house and swarm over the roof. It looks wonderful for a couple of months, but heaven help you if you don't like pruning things. This little rascal can strangle a tree, block gutters, and cause damp to your walls.

So why do I mention it at all?

1. Because it grows in the shade, and therefore has a place here.
2. It is a very beautiful plant and provided you have the energy and right equipment (tall ladder and shears), you can keep it under control.

I grow it in a tub in my garden, and keep it well under control, allowing it to grow up a trellis nailed to a wall, but cutting it back if it starts to extend beyond the trellis.

Just a bit of fun. What's your attitude about weeds? Do you whisk them all out on principle—they have no place in a domestic garden—or do you really rather like them?

There are lots of different varieties of fern. I grow several different types in my garden. They look so cool and refreshing in the shade when the sun is blazing down, and everything else is looking a bit bleached and dry.

I grow Maidenhair Fern as well as this more unusual one, whose name escapes me. Any ideas from readers gratefully accepted!

Also known as the butterfly plant because it attracts butterflies, buddleias come in many shades of purple, from white through to dark heliotrope set against silvery green leaves. They are vigorous flowering shrubs that grow prolifically. In the building where I used to work, I saw them growing where they had seeded themselves in cracks in garage cement. Although preferring a sunny position, in my garden they grow happily in dappled shade. They need good drainage and should be cut back hard every year to flower on the new wood. Otherwise, they grow very tall and woody.

Best of all, they are fairly long-flowering—over most of the summer and into autumn.

Pansies come in a range of magnificent colours. I love them, and their little faces always seem so welcoming.

You can get winter-flowering pansies, so it is possible to have pansies in pots flowering nearly all year round. They do a lot better if you give them plant food every two weeks or so. Otherwise, they might start to die off or simply not produce many flowers.

Pansies come in dark velvety reds, yellows, purples, and whites with many different combinations. I like to color-match them to other flowers in my garden so that you see a show of purples, pale lavender, or white flowers. An area where there are orange and red flowers growing together looks spectacular too.