How to Design a Shade Garden

Use a combination of shrubs, perennials and bulbs to bring color and texture to shady spots in your garden. Put in a bench and enjoy the cool patch when everywhere else is too hot to bear.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Flower bulbs
• Seeds
• Plants
• Pencils
• Planting containers
• Graph paper

1. Gauge your shade. If the puniest weeds won't grow in a spot, the shade's too dense for anything you plant to survive. Just about everywhere else is fair game for a shade garden, though.

2. Draw your garden to scale on graph paper. Sketch in the trees and buildings that make the shade. Note which way the sun crosses your space at different times of the year and where the water supply will be.

3. Look at the shade over a day or two. Where does it go? Draw in the dappled shade areas, the areas of daylong dim light, and the densest nooks and crannies.

4. Define the planting areas on your drawing. Be sure they're big enough to make an impact--draw your edge around a group of trees to balance their size with the new garden below.

5. Draw in two anchor plants--evergreens or grasses--and plan to repeat them several times in your design. Use them for continuity through the garden and across the seasons.

6. Plan for bold texture. Select spots you want to look at and plants with big, coarse leaves to catch your eye. Shrubs like viburnum and hydrangea work here, as do perennials from canna to iris--and all will bloom in dappled shade.

7. Sketch in smaller shrubs and perennials to fill in the visual gaps. Use shade classics such as boxwood and Compacta holly for their strong lines and finer textures.

8. Add color to your shade garden with the variegated leaves of hosta and the silver tones of wormwood and dusty miller. Make a place for colorful garden art, too--put color where you'll see it.

9. Be sure to include flowers. Plan for clumps of bulbs like daffodils and grape hyacinth and bloomers like impatiens and Indian pink.

Tips & Warnings

• Young, shallow-rooted plants transplant more easily under trees.
• Mulch with bark or gravel in deepest shade--or trim the trees above.
• Add plants in pots to the shade garden for color where no plants will grow in the ground and to overcome dense tree roots in your growing space.
• Use the seasonal shade under deciduous trees--summer shade for daffodils and increased light for winter bloomers like Lenten rose.