How to Grow Flowers in the Shade

A shade flower garden gives the gardener an opportunity to flex her creative muscle and present a beautiful and colorful garden full of flowers to the world. Shade gardening gives us a color palette that is softer on the eye and easy to care for than a direct sun garden. The shade plant usually needs less maintenance because weeds don't grow as fast in the shade and less water because the sun does not dry the garden out as fast.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A garden spot that gets full or partial shade all day
• Plants grown for the shade garden
• Balanced fertilizer like 8-8-8.
• Trowel
• Gloves
• Mulch

Choosing your Plants

1. Look at your local nursery for plants, not at a big box store. Your local nursery has shade plants in a shaded area and a staff who can help you choose the plants that are best for you.

2. Select shade loving shrubs like azaleas.

3. 

   Select deep shade loving perennials like clivias also known as kaffir lillies

4. 

   Find perennials like Bleeding Heart vines that die back in the winter but return in the spring. Give them a trellis to climb on.

5. 

   Bring home a calla lily, the flower that Katherine Hepburn called "The perfect flower for any occasion." The calla lily loves wet feet, but will tolerate a well watered space equally well.

6. 

   Add a columbine to your palette for rich reds. Columbine likes partial shade. It may be a perennial in your climate. It is in the warmer zones. For annual color, use impatiens, begonias and coleus. Coleus is not a flower, but has multi colored leaves that are as pretty as flowers. Use caladiums just as you use coleus. Caladiums come in many colors, from red, white and green, and have a great leaf shape. They can give a texture and shape the flower garden needs.

7. 

   Use acanthus with its broad leaf and spiky flower in the deepest shade.

Planting your Shade Flowers

8. Dig a hole twice as wide as the potted plant.

9. Dig the hole the same depth as it is in the pot.

10. Remove the plant from the pot. If it is pot bound, tease the roots out so they can grow out instead of in a circle.

11. Return the dug out soil to the hole and tamp it down good, making sure no air pockets are left under the plant.

12. Mulch well and fertilize with a balanced fertilizer.

13. Water in the plant.

Tips & Warnings

• Choose plants that like the same amount of shade and water. Vary your colors to your tastes.
• If you choose a plant that loves to be in deep shade, make sure it does not get sun or the plant may wilt and die.