Shaded Gardens

Unfortunately most gardens come with a shaded area although if you’re a first time gardener, then you’ll probably not have noticed that your garden this shaded area. Believe me it will have a shaded space somewhere, more often than not to one side of the house or in a corner somewhere. That’s why you’ll need to be considering shaded gardening at some point in time. However, properly done, your shaded garden can be utilised and used to your advantage.

If you find the shade in your garden is due to a tree or trees, even if it is your neighbour hedge, you’ll find that the earth is probably dry and matted with roots.

Planting may be difficult and you might find that the soil needs improving before it can be planted. Be careful when doing this as some trees, like Oak, can be greatly affected by a change in soil depth. They are extremely sensitive to changes.

Also, if the soil is compacted and you need to till the ground around the roots, you’ll again need to be very careful that you don't break the roots and cause long term damage to the bushes or trees.

When choosing your plants, you’ll have to keep in mind the conditions that are likely found within the shaded area. It may be very dry or very wet. Low, dappled sunlight or perhaps very little sun at all. Possibly only some sunlight at certain times of the day

Poor air circulation caused by low lying branches, or tall intrusive walls. These are only a few of the possible you’ll have to deal with when working with a shaded garden.

Having looked at the more serious apects and problems of shade gardening. You can move on to what we want to be dealing with, the plants themselves. Laying out the garden, preparing it and planting it out is the best bit of any gardening.

Since plants that thrive in the shade aren’t as vivid and bright as plants that grow in full sunlight, it’s best if you lean more towards flowers with pastel shades, as darker colors will only tend to blend into the background.

Plants that do well in a shaded area range from Foxgloves and Daisys to Begonias and Bluebells. Forget-me-nots are also a favourite and have lovely blue blooms. If you plan your shade gardening carefully, you can have flowers in bloom for much of the year.

Other plants to consider are ground covering plants that spread to fill in large areas. Hostas, are traditionally a good ground coverage plant and has big widespread leaves that hug the ground. Of course ivy is a favourite as are Wintercreepers, and Ajuga.

No matter what you decide upon, you'll have a shaded area anyway so try to make the most of it and try to enjoy shade gardening.