Gardening in the PNW with lots of shade can be both good news and bad news. We mostly love living among the trees. We recognize the importance of preserving and restoring our diminishing urban canopy. But trying to grow colorful flowers, fruits or vegetables under trees can be a challenge. And increasing urbanization brings taller buildings and more shade at ground level.
If shade is what you have, know that there are many shade-tolerant plants that can grace your garden. Designing a successful garden in a shady setting comes down to choosing appropriate plants and perhaps adjusting your expectations. The solutions start with a little homework.
This blog post will help illuminate the types of shade you may be dealing with, discuss other design considerations, and offer sample shade garden designs and plant lists.
Types of Shade
First, try to observe and analyze the type and amount shade you have:
• Light or dappled shade: sunlight filtered through trees — under which many plants grow well.
• Full or deep shade: very little direct sunlight — which limits your plant choices, but there are still many.
• Morning or afternoon shade — many plants that prefer partial shade thrive with morning sun but should be shaded from intense afternoon sun. Plants that prefer full sun might tolerate some shade in morning or afternoon, but the more sun they get, the better.
Amount of sunlight is just one variable affecting any plant’s success. Others include soil, root competition, water, and disease or pest resistance. And there might be differences in vigor between individual plants of the same species. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut feeling and try a plant in that spot for a season or two.
Some gardens are mostly in shade, but not all day or all year long. The angle of the sun can change whether a plant is in sun or shade at different times of year. Look for spots lit by sunlight during the day and/or in different seasons. Note where they are and how long they receive sun. Those that receive 2 or 3 hours or more during the growing season might enable some sun-loving plants, although they may not be as vigorous as in full sun.
Notice what is casting the shade. If it’s a structure, the shade patterns will likely be consistent from year to year. If it’s a tree, growing branches could increase shaded areas each year. If it’s a small enough tree, perhaps some judicious pruning can allow more light. Try to anticipate those changes.
If you have a dry shade setting under a structure (such as a deck or roof overhang) or certain trees (such as western red cedar), that can be a special challenge. Plants may struggle there from lack of water, root competition or acidic soil. Make sure they are getting the water they need, especially for the first few years. But the plants shown in the Dry Shade design sketch below are generally more tolerant of these conditions.
More information on shade gardening:
Swansons’ Shade Gardening Guide
50 Shades of Shade
Container Design for Shade
Design Principles
As with designing rooms of your dwelling, start with what you want from your space. Identify primary focal points and your typical view angles.
With plant choices, consider artistic principles such as emphasis, balance, rhythm, and variety of texture. Try to resist the temptation of planting one of everything that caught your eye at the nursery. Establish a framework of masses and repetition — of individual plants, shapes and colors. These will support and enhance the focal points.
It might help to think of actors in a musical — which plants are the leads, giving their show-stopping performance in bloom or fall foliage? Which plants make up the trusty chorus line? The best shows include the right balance.
Just as effective as mixing colors in your design, mix foliage textures — such as large/small leaf, pointed/rounded, smooth/textured, or shrubby/grasslike — to add to the variety and flow of the design.
More information on the garden design process and principles:
Garden Design 101
The Lure of the Japanese Garden
7 Great Garden Ideas
Designing With Plants
Design for Small Spaces
The Poetry of Site Analysis
Additional Considerations
If you embrace the shade and try to evoke a native forest, visit various forest settings and observe how dense or open they feel, what textures are evident, and how sunlight moves through them.
Think about how much and what type of space you wish to create or preserve. A heavily shaded garden can sometimes feel claustrophobic, especially if there are a lot of dense plants at or above eye level. So, except where you want screening, consider planting trees and shrubs which grow more open, or can be easily pruned to thin out their branching. Rather than filling your spaces with rhododendron, camellia, Japanese holly, aucuba, etc., you might choose open-branching plants such as Japanese maple, winter hazel, or flowering currant. Note that many of these naturally tend to grow more open under shade.
Edit your design as the plants grow. Remember we said “try a plant in that spot for a season or two”? In any garden setting, a plant you thought would thrive in a particular spot might be struggling. Perhaps it’s brighter or darker than you originally thought. Or a plant is growing more vigorously than expected.
Don’t be afraid to dig and move something (the younger, the better) or remove it if it doesn’t work. The overall design and health of your garden should take precedence over a single plant.
There are many flowering plants for shade, perhaps not as showy as sun lovers, but beautiful nonetheless. Look for variety and subtlety of foliage color, size and shape, branching habit, bark texture, and other details these plants offer. Or perhaps add colorful containers, furnishings, lighting, or paving materials to brighten things up.
More information on plant choices for shade:
Flowers for Shade Gardens
Flowers for Partial Shade
Plants for Dry Shade
Sample Designs
Here are some layouts for beds that could front a wall, fence or property line. Assume these beds are shaded by overhead trees, a tall fence or building wall. Each design aims to show some of the design principles we’ve mentioned, with shade tolerant plants.
Of course you can mix-and-match plants within these simple layouts, if the plants tolerate either setting. For examples, bleeding heart would work in Color for Shade or Native/Woodland. Hellebore in Dry Shade or Deep Shade. Hosta, ferns or Oregon grape in any of these settings.
Plant List for Color Shade
Hardy Cyclamen
Hardy Fuchsia
Hardy Geranium
Hardy Primrose
Heuchera
Hosta
Japanese Forest Grass
Japanese Holly
Siberian Bugloss
Vinca (Periwinkle)
Winter Hazel
Cyclamen hederifolium or coum
Fuchsia spp.
Geranium spp.
Primula spp.
Heuchera spp.
Hosta spp.
Hakonechloa macra
Ilex crenata
Brunnera macrophylla
Vinca minor
Corylopsis pauciflora or spicata
Plant List for Native or Woodland Shade
Columbine
Evergreen Huckleberry
Ferns
Low Oregon Grape
Red Flowering Currant
Salal
Trillium
Vancouveria
Vine Maple
Wild Ginger
Wintergreen
Aquilegia formosa
Vaccinium ovatum
Various species
Mahonia nervosa or repens
Ribes sanguineum
Gaultheria shallon
Trillium ovatum
Vancouveria hexandra
Acer circinatum
Asarum caudense
Gaultheria procumbens
Plant List for Dry Shade
Barrenwort
Bear’s Breech
Bleeding Heart
Ferns
Heavenly Bamboo
Japanese anemone
Japanese Sedge
Laurustinus
Lilyturf
Lemon Beauty Honeysuckle
Wintercreeper
Winter Daphne
Epimedium spp.
Acanthus mollis
Dicentra formosa
Various species
Nandina domestica
Anemone japonica
Viburnum tinus ‘Spring Bouquet’
Liriope muscari
Lonicera nitida ‘Lemon Beauty’
Euonymus fortunei
Daphne odora
Plant List for Deep Shade
Acucba
Ferns
Foamflower
Hellebore
Hosta
Mondo Grass
Oregon Grape
Pachysandra
Solomon’s Seal
Vanilla Plant
Aucuba japonica
Various species
Tiarella cordifolia
Helleborus spp.
Hosta spp.
Ophiopogon japonicus
Mahonia aquifolium
Pachysandra terminalis
Polygonatum odoratum
Sarcococca ruscifolia
If you still have questions about your particular space, please ask us in person or at garden@swansonsnursery.com.