Perennials for That Shady Bed
by
Carmen Cosentino

I don’t usually write about outdoor gardening, but last week I had a dilemma and
did some research to solve it. Here is the result of that reading and surfing the
net. Next to my house is a very shady spot. It was full of weeds and shrubs and
nothingness so I decided to make it into my private little garden. As a matter of
fact, I had recently been to Charleston, SC and was impressed by all the pocket
gardens and decided that I should have a Charleston Garden. After about 3
weeks the brick work was done, fencing and walls were looking good and ivy
growing like crazy up the adjacent chimney, Now for the plants; plants that
would survive and thrive in medium to deep shade. Ferns and Hostas were
obvious choices, but I wanted color for as much of the summer as possible. Too,
I wanted some out of the ordinary plants and some that would be the same as
those in the South Carolina gardens I was emulating.
First thing to come to mind was the Jack in the Pulpit (Arisaema.) It blooms in
late spring, is very exotic looking and I liked the white stripes on the flowers that
lasted several weeks. This easy to grow plant is not fussy, requires very little
maintenance as well as it is planted in a humus, well drained, rich soil. Careful,
though, the fruit of this plant of the Arum family, while not poisonous, can cause
severe irritation of the mouth.
They’re wonderful plants, the Astilbes. While not happy in deep shade, this plant
is worth a try because of the feathery plumes of pink, red and white flowers that
appear mid to late summer. As with the Jack in the Pulpit, it does well in a soil
that is well drained and high in humus. It just doesn’t like wet feet.
As I write this I am looking out my window at a bed of Lily of the Valley
(Convallaria majalis.) Oh how I would love it if the season was more than two or
three weeks. While it is beautiful in the garden, I mostly love it because I pick it
just as it begins to open and keep it in small vases throughout the house. A
couple of interesting points; it does spread rapidly, so that if you want to keep it
contained, put up some 2 x 6 barriers below ground level. Though I won’t get
into it here, you can now have them nearly year round by storing the roots (pips)
and forcing them. Commercial flower growers do it all the time. There is a lot on
the internet about this process.
Tiny coral and pink flowers along thin delicate stems from late spring throughout
the summer and very interesting foliages make Coral Bells (Heuchera) winners in
any shade garden. Over the past few years botanists and breeders have been
working diligently to give us a wide range of colors and hues in the flower and
wonderful shades of green, rust and bronze in the foliages.
Sometimes considered a ground cover because it only grows 12 to 18 inches tall,
Lily Turf (Liriope) will give masses of pink or lavender or white flowers late in the
season once it has been established. It likes partial shade and is quite resistant
to drought, such as we have here in the Auburn area, especially when we forget
to water the gardens regularly. There are so many more, I’ll talk more about the shade garden before too long.