A shade garden can be a great place of relaxation and serenity. Sitting under the shade, you can do a lot of restful activities without sweating under the sun. Just sit under the shade and enjoy the beauty of the nature, read books, or have casual talks with family members. The uniqueness of the shade garden plants is that they flourish well in areas frequented by limited natural light. The decreased light may be of a morning sun, gloomy sun, or filtered sun. These plants require moist soil that is rich in organic matter to grow well. Ideal places to grow the shade-loving plants would be the areas where there is blocked light from tall buildings or in areas receiving diminished light due to tall trees in the surrounding area. When compared to the sun garden plants, the shade loving plants bloom well even with little care and water. They are also easy to maintain.

There are certain varieties of shade garden plants that grow for more than three years under mottled or full-shaded areas. The good thing is, as these plants flourish in the shades of the neighboring trees, they are well protected from the damage or breakage during the extreme temperatures of summer and winter. A perfect shade garden would be the one that has a blend of bright colors, arousing fragrance, nice foliage, and pervasive combination of Heucheras.

Color

By planting a cluster of perennial shade-growing plants in your garden, you can witness a steady presence of colors in your shade garden. Azalea is a colorful shade-flourishing plant that bears brightly colored flowers during the spring. The astilbe bears flowers with varying colors- red, pink, purple and white. It blooms a variety of such colors predominantly in the June and July. Bee balm is an attractive shade garden plant that bears white and red fragrant flowers starting in mid summer and lasting till the end of fall. This means, you can sit back and have an extended garden season on your landscape.

Fragrance

Two shade garden plants, the daylily and hydrangeas are well known for their fragrances. The flowers of daylily live for only a day but produces magical fragrance. Hydrangeas have green foliage and naturally scented flowers. Hydrangea blooms will vary in color according to variety selected and the pH of your soil. White blooming hydrangeas are not affected by the soil’s pH.

Foliage

Add foliage to your shade garden with an assortment of ferns. Large growing ferns such as the royal and ostrich ferns make excellent backdrop plants while the delicate lady and maidenhair ferns mix well with other plants such as hostas. Variegated hosta varieties like the patriot, revolution and Francee brighten up dark shaded garden areas.

Heuchera

A shade plant garden would certainly look incomplete without the vibrant foliage of the many evergreen heuchera varieties. The leaves can be seen in various hues- green, pink, purple and many more. Grow the North American native Heuchera plant in the shade landscape; this colorful plant won’t fail to grab the attention of any visitor that visits your shade garden.