Shady areas in a landscape offer a special opportunity to create cool, inviting vignettes that help to make the landscape more appealing during the hot months of summer. There are many great plants well adapted to growing in shady areas and often narrowing the choice down to those that best fit your site's conditions and your personal taste is the most difficult task.

Annuals & Perennial Plants
Annual flowers that grow well in the shade are familiar to most gardeners, including impatiens; wax begonia; flowering tobacco, Nicotiana alata; coleus; caladium; and salvia. Some plants like salvia, flowering tobacco and coleus do best in partial shade and will not perform as well in dense shade.

Many perennials plants also grow well in shaded areas, and have the added advantage of not needing to be planted each spring. Common shade-loving perennials that are familiar to most gardeners include bugleweed, Ajuga repens; astilbe, Astilbe x arendsii; columbine, Aquilegia x hybrida; bleeding heart, Dicentra x hybrida; foxglove, Digitalis x mertonensis; coralbells, Heuchera sp.; hosta, Hosta sp.; and vinca, Vinca minor. Many other great shade-loving perennials are not as well known including bergenia, Lady's Mantle, pulmonaria and Meadow Rue.

Bergenia, Bergenia cordifolia, is also known as pigsqueak; if the leaves are rubbed just right between the thumb and forefinger, a sound like a pig squeaking is produced. Panicles of pinkish flowers are produced in summer, but the main attraction is the foliage. Bergenia leaves are large, rounded, leathery and waxy resulting in an eye-catching coarseness in the garden. The foliage is also evergreen, turning a deep burgundy in winter. Plant in moist shade with morning sun and well-drained soil.

Lady's Mantle, Alchemilla mollis, is a medium sized plant with hairy, lobed leaves and foamy, yellowish-green sprays of flowers produced from late spring to early summer. The densely hairy leaves are very attractive, especially after a rain shower or heavy morning dew. The plant grows 20-24 inches tall and requires moist, shady areas in the garden. The flowers make long-lasting cut flowers.

Bethlehem sage, Pulmonaria saccharata, have broadly oval, often blue-green leaves marked with silvery-white spots. Pink or blue flowers are produced in spring, often opening pink then changing to blue before they fade. Moist soil, especially during hot, dry summers and partial morning sun produce the best growth.

Columbine meadow-rue, Thalictrum aquilegifolium, has blue-tinted leaves similar to those of columbine and produces large, puffy, purple flower panicles. Mature height is usually around three feet, but can reach up to five feet. Requires well-drained soil with adequate moisture and partial shade.

Trees & Shrubs
Aside from annuals and herbaceous perennial plants, there are many great woody plants that grow well in shady areas including red chokeberry, Aronia arbutifolia; black chokeberry, Aronia melanocarpa; Dogwood, Cornus sp; Vernal Witch Hazel, Hamamelis vernalis; Alpine currant, Ribes alpinum; and Viburnum, Viburnum sp.

Red and black chokeberry are beautiful understory shrubs with white to yellowish flowers in spring, followed by bright red or black fruits. The foliage is a deep, lustrous green in summer, changing to crimson or reddish purple in fall. Adaptable to many soil types, even poor soil, with good drainage. Grows well in full sun or partial shade and has a suckering, colony-forming growth habit.

The genus Cornus contains many wonderful plants, collectively called dogwoods. Many dogwoods grow best in partially shaded areas including Cornelia Cherry Dogwood, Cornus mas; Gray Dogwood, Cornus racemosa; and Red Twig Dogwood, Cornus sericea. Dogwoods range in size from 6' foot shrubs to 20' tall trees. White to pale yellowish flowers are produced in spring and are followed by small whitish or blue-black berries. Choose an area with well-drained, moist soil.

Vernal witch hazel is an unusual plant that produces yellow, fragrant flowers in fall. Sometimes the flowers are hidden though, because the leaves turn a bright yellow in fall too. The multi-stemmed, dense shrub forms a neat, rounded outline and reaches 6-10 feet high at maturity. Often does well in moist, poorly drained, shaded sites.

Alpine currant makes a good hedge plant for shady areas. It has small, lobed bright green leaves and greenish-yellow flowers in spring. It is adaptable to most soils, tolerates both full sun and shade, and can be pruned any time of year. Mature height is 3-6 feet if left unpruned.

Finally, any landscape is incomplete without at least one Viburnum and several plants in this genus do well in partial shade including Koreanspice, Arrowwood, Blackhaw, Judd and Wayfaring Tree viburnums. All tolerate a variety of soils, as long as they are well-drained. White, often fragrant, flowers are produced in spring followed by red or bluish-black fruits favored by birds. The unpruned, mature height ranges from 5-12 feet depending on species, but all tolerate pruning well.

Shady areas in the landscape should never be boring or empty when there are so many wonderful plants from which to choose.