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What Perennial Flower Grows in Shade

Shady garden spots provide a cool escape from the summer heat. These sun-starved areas, however, can appear incomplete without their share of bright blooms or foliage. Finding a perennial flower to grow in shade isn't difficult, given the wide range of shade-tolerant mounding, spreading or tall, linear blooming plants. Mix and match them to make the best of their different characteristics; they'll create an ever-changing succession of shade garden scenes that return year after year. Does this Spark an idea?

  1. Flowering Ground Covers

    • Common bugleweed's (Ajuga reptans) delicate, blue-purple spring flowers spiral along 10-inch stems. The stalks emerge above 3-to-4 inch mats of glossy, deep green leaves. A single plant can spread up to 3 feet. The Black Scallop bugleweed cultivar pairs purple-black foliage with tubular, deep purple flowers. Hybrid corydalis (Corydalis) Blackberry Wine's fernlike, bluish-green foliage clumps reach 10 inches high and up to 18 inches wide, forming an airy shade garden ground cover. Nodding clusters of tubular, purple flowers appear above the leaves from late spring to mid-summer. The fragrant blossoms continue until fall where summers are cool. Bugleweed thrives in sun to part shade. Corydalis needs part to full shade. Both appreciate moist, organically rich soils.

    Mounding Perennials

    • The Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) Looking Glass cultivar illuminates shade with heart-shaped, silvery-green foliage. The leaves grow into 18-inch high and wide mounds through the spring and early summer, when Looking Glass' blue, starlike flowers appear in clusters on branching stems. Bishop's hat (Epimedium grandiflorum) Lilafee's clump of slender-stemmed, compound, oval leaves progresses from red-beige in spring to summer's green before coloring shady autumn spots with solid red. The 10-to-15 inch cultivar has spurred, deep lavender May flowers. Both plants perform best in evenly moist, well-drained soil and partial shade.

    Tall Flowering Perennials

    • The 3-to-4 foot bugbane (Actaea matsumurae) White Pearl cultivar refreshes heat-worn landscapes with clumps of deep-green, fernlike leaves and showy, curving spires of fragrant white flowers. Leopard plant (Ligularia) The Rocket peaks ornamentally in early to mid-summer. The 4-to-5 foot cultivar's erect clusters of lemon-yellow daisies crown purple-tinged green stems above clumps of heart-shaped, pale green leaves. These plants bring architectural interest to the back of partly to densely shaded perennial borders. They flourish in moist, humus-rich soils.

    Perennial Flowering Vines

    • Perennial Japanese hydrangea vine (Schizophragma hydrangeoides) clings to its supports with sticky rootlets, growing rapidly to conceal them beneath its stems of heart-shaped foliage. Mature vines reach 20 feet to 30 feet high. The Roseum Japanese hydrangea cultivar has 8-to-10 inch clusters of pink midsummer florets. Its dark green leaves become yellow in autumn. This vine requires partial to full shade and fertile, moist well-drained soil. Tidy calico flower, or pipe vine's, (Aristolochia elegans) purple-mottled, white tubular blooms open against its dense, bright green summer foliage. Perennial to US Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zone 8 and winter lows of 10 F, the 10-to-15 foot vine grows in partial sun to full shade.

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