If you're buying plants for shade,
you need to know what sort of shade you've got and there are four types- and
actually I've got all four in my garden, and you may have too. It's Alexandra here from
the Middlesized Garden YouTube channel and blog and this video is a collaboration
with The Horti-Culturalists channel from Melbourne, Australia. The Horti-Culturalists
is run by top plant expert and broadcaster Stephen Ryan and Matthew Lucas. And Stephen Ryan is a
plant expert, he grows rare plants and for many years he presented on Gardening Australia, which is
the equivalent of Gardener's World here in the UK. And I'm going to talk about the principles of
choosing plants for shady parts of your garden, I'm going to give you some of my favorite spring
and early summer shade loving plants and then you can go over to The Horti-Culturalists channel
where Stephen and Matthew will talk about plants for summer and autumn, and the reason for
that is because they're based near Melbourne, they're now in autumn, I'm currently in spring but
amazingly the area around Melbourne, Australia and Kent in the Southeast of the UK, where i
am, both roughly equate to what you'd call a USDA hardiness zone of nine, which means that our winters rarely
go below minus six celsius, 21 fahrenheit - obviously the summers near melbourne and the summers in most
USDA hardiness zones of nine are a lot hotter than they are here in Kent in southeast England but we
all grow many of the same plants and a lot of the plants we're talking about will do well in much cooler
zones, too, many of them are zones six to nine for example. If you're new here, the Middlesized Garden
uploads weekly with tips, ideas and inspiration for your garden and if you'd like to see the videos
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Horti-Culturalists and their video and any other resources that we mention in the description
below and also if you want to jump to any particular part of the video (for plant names, for example) there's a time stamp
so just click on that and you'll go straight to the bit that you want. So Stephen explained that
there are four different kinds of shady border and I'm standing in one now and that is the
classic north-facing shady border (that would be south-facing if you're in the southern hemisphere)
basically, this will have a fence or hedge or wall and my wall is quite high and what that means
is that it'll really only get sun when the sun is more or less overhead and that will be probably about three
hours of sun a day, and although there are lots of plants that are happy to grow in that environment,
you do have to make sure that they are plants that are happy in shade. The next category is sometimes
called dappled shade or semi shade or partial shade and typically this is like a corner of my
garden which actually would be quite sunny except that I've got a large tree - a Robinia
frisia- there and that has leaves on, probably for most of the summer and the autumn, and that
means that the plants below it grow in shade some of the time. I've increased the sun under that
tree by raising its branches - if you cut off the lower branches then a little more sunlight will
get to the plants underneath - and of course you may ask 'why doesn't she cut the tree down
and then she could have another sunny border?' But actually the tree has a fantastic
presence, it's wonderful for wildlife, it's very good for air quality, it adds proportion
and structure and vertical interest in the garden and its leaves are wonderful in creating a
beautiful autumnal display, so what I get from this tree exceeds what I would get from having
a low growing border of colorful sunny plants, and it's also protected, it's a listed tree and
I would need planning permission to cut it down. The third kind of shade is seasonal shade and
I also have this. Seasonal shade is an area that would be sunny except that it has deciduous trees
in it so it's shady in summer when the leaves are on the trees, but from about late autumn to early
summer, the leaves are not on the trees, so it is a sunny bed and I have four deciduous trees
in a sunny spot, and in early spring I get all the beautiful bulbs there- tulips, daffodils, leucojum -
it's just the most colorful part of the garden - and the bulbs need the sunshine in order to create
the flowers for next year, but they get enough because by the time early summer comes, the leaves
are back on the tree it's shady, but the bulbs have taken all the nutrition they need. Now once again
you might say 'why not cut down the trees and have another sunny border?' but actually in every
single season of the year, the trees do once again give me more - the white bark of the silver birch
is the most important part of my winter garden, in spring the amalanchier and the ornamental
cherry both have the most wonderful white blossom - at different times - and in summer, the
cotinus has deep red leaves and wonderfully smoky flowers - it's called a smoke bush - and it's
the most remarked upon plant in my garden, so those four trees together give me much
more than just extending my sunny border would. The fourth type of shade is deep shade and
that's where really very little or no sunlight ever goes - it's really difficult
to grow things in deep shade - and Stephen says that there's a plant called Ruscus
or butcher's broom that will grow in deep shade, but not much else will, so you really have to think
in a slightly different way about this part of your garden - I've got an area of deep shade in my
garden, it's a long north-facing wall (which would be south facing in the southern hemisphere) but
I've also got two evergreen trees on that wall and the combination of being north facing
and evergreen trees means that there are a few little patches where there simply is no
sunlight. And if you've got that, just look and see if weeds grow there, because if weeds don't
grow, quite frankly plants aren't going to grow either, so you could use it for something else - you could
put a bench or table under there for some nice shady seating and you could put pots, if you're
prepared to do the faff of swapping things in pots over three or four times a year. But the other
thing to do is to take tips from woodland gardens. I recently interviewed
Lucy Adams at Doddington Place Gardens about woodland gardens and she said that
one of the best places to plant plants is on the 'woodland edge' and that is
under the edge of the canopy of the tree. Now the canopy of the tree obviously is its
leaf mass and some trees have quite a spreading canopy and some have quite a columnar and upright
canopy, but when the sun is completely overhead of an evergreen tree then the canopy covers the amount
of shade that you'll see on the ground - it could be narrow or it could be quite a big circle - if you
plant on the ground underneath the edge of that canopy, then the sun is going to reach the plants, certainly
for a few hours a day - you'll still have to choose shade loving plants, but you will have quite a few
options and if you look at my two evergreen trees, the space between them could be called
a 'woodland edge' because it's very close to the edge of the canopy of the trees and I find
that quite a lot grows in there - I've got hydrangea arborescence 'Annabelle', I've got rosa glauca,
I've got primroses, cyclamen, hellebores, I've got something called osmanthus delavayi,
and iIll go into some of these plants later on, so this really is quite a lot growing there, but
it's just not going to grow directly under the tree near the trunk- just look and plant a little
bit further out. And you can actually increase the planting area by taking away some of the lower
branches because then a bit more sun will get in. You might ask, of course, once again, why
have I got two evergreen trees in this very shady part of the garden? And that's because
they're blocking out a very ugly street lamp, they do provide some lovely structure in
winter because obviously they're evergreen, and they're a wonderful shelter for wildlife and
of course they're good for air quality, so once again I don't want to cut them down and in fact by
choosing the right plants, we can plant around them and that area of the garden can look beautiful.
And the other thing about this particular bed - the weeds don't grow as well and the plants don't grow
as fast, so actually it's much easier to look after. So once you've identified what sort of shade
you have, it's important to plant for seasonal interest - try to get a plant that looks great in
either every month of the year or every season of the year and of course here I'm doing the early
spring and summer plants and Stephen and Matthew will show you some later summer and autumn plants on
the Horti-Culturalists channel. So what about the beginning of the year, late winter/ early spring?
well snow drops grow fantastically under trees I've even managed to get them growing
under the edge of the canopy of the evergreen tree, and they really do say 'winter is just beginning to
come to its end'. In terms of winter shrubs, if you want a deciduous shrub - one that loses its leaves
in winter -then winter hazel or corylopsis is a good choice - it's got pale lemon flowers. And
for evergreen shrubs, I'd like to remind you how magnificent a mahonia can be. Mahonia
is a brilliant sculptural evergreen shrub with lovely spiky leaves and bright yellow flowers -
now it's been rather forgotten about over the last few decades, because it's such an easy plant, it's
often grown in things like supermarket car parks and town center car parks, and sometimes it
just gets hacked at by people with chainsaws who don't really understand gardening, so it finishes
up looking very uncomfortable, but if you prune it properly or even just simply leave it alone, it's
a wonderfully architectural plant and I think it's time is coming again. If you're looking for good
shade loving perennials that flower well in early spring, then hellebores are the stars of the show,
they're such pretty delicate plants and they're so easy going, I've really never had to do much to any
of my hellebores but they're growing very happily on the woodland edge in my shady borders and
also in my partial shade borders. Going a little bit later in the year, you have so many choices but
I am particularly keen on Mediterranean spurge or Euphorbia wulfenii, which actually kind of roams
around my garden sort of putting itself down wherever it feels like it and it's got this lovely
chartreuse green flower. One plant that looks good in late spring/ early summer is smyrnium perfoliatum or
Perfoliate alexanders and every time I put this on my Instagram feed, someone says 'what is that
plant?' It's a biennial, so it won't do anything in its first year and then it flowers in its second
year and then it self-seeds very vigorously. And when it comes to shrubs, viburnum opulus or
the snowball bush is just lovely - it has lovely white pom-pom flowers in early spring, it does
very well in shade, some varieties have got red berries - you just need to check whether it's a
sterile variety or not if you want the berries - and then there is the most magnificent autumn
color so that is a really good shade loving early spring and also autumn plant. I'm also very
impressed by something called osmanthus delavayi - it's a dark green shrub with very pretty white
flowers and this one has been growing directly beneath the evergreen magnolia grandiflora, so it's
been growing in pretty deep shade - it grows very slowly, it's taken about eight years to get to this
stage but I think it's a very worthwhile plant. And as good shade loving ground cover, saxifrage
'London pride' has a very delicate pretty flower and I've got it growing directly beneath my
evergreen magnolia grandiflora, but the only thing you do have to remember is that magnolia
grandiflora loses its leaves throughout the year - being an evergreen, they do lose their leaves but
they just do them throughout the year - and it has very big leathery leaves and if they land on
ground cover plants, they'll just ban all the light, so you do have to clear those leaves up from
time to time. One of the things people always want to know is 'what about colorful flowers for shade?'
there are so many lovely whites and yellows and of course they look gorgeous in shade, but if you
want color then begonias are very shade tolerant - there's a huge selection of them - some begonias
have become quite sort of car park plants as well but actually you'll be able to find one that suits
your color scheme and some of them have gorgeous elaborate leaves as well, they're very tender you
won't be able to plant them out all year round and they do do particularly well in pots. But the
other colorful plant that does well in shade is impatiens or busy lizzie and for a while
that disappeared off our shelves because it had a sort of virus or something, but there
are now busy lizzies back and available to buy. Stephen and Matthew are now going to join me on
the Middle-sized Garden to tell you a couple of their favorite shade loving plants, so let's go
over to them - hello, we're the Horti-Culturalists and I'm Stephen Ryan, I'm Matthew Lucas - Stephen is
the guru and thank you, Alexandra - here are some of our spring / summer selections for shady gardening. Yes
everybody knows what a hosta is, they do! I love hostas and this one is mine, growing
in a pot, but we'll get to that, they are sort of classical woodland plants for shady gardens,
we all know the diversity within the genus - we know that there's green ones, there's silvery blue
ones, there's variegated ones - we have one prepared earlier - yes, yes variegated and they do have
very attractive flowers in the late spring/ early summer, but it's for their foliage that most of us
grow them - of course, they're dormant in the winter, so they die down, and they have one major downside
I think. What's that? Snails and slugs and in fact this variegated one we bought along is actually
slightly snail ridden, you know you've been naughty if you allow your hostas to become snail ridden,
and they make you pay for it the whole rest of the season. Now I use an iron based organic slug and
snail pellets, yes ,which works brilliantly for me. The product works fine uh and it's non-dangerous
for bird life and other creatures around, my only hesitation with it is it does take a little while
to start killing slugs and snails and i have found quite regularly, that, well, they eat this pellet,
and then they go on and have a dessert with the hosta and then they go off and die during the day. So
their death isn't fast enough for yo? No, right not for me, I like a quick death, yes exactly, look - in
some areas you don't get a lot of slugs and snails , they're not a problem and hostas will grow in a wide
range of environments, we all know that they like a certain amount of moisture, but they're not water
hungry and 'where are they from?' They're a Chinese species originally, yeah mainly through Asia, China,
Japan is where most of the wild hostas come from. There are multitudes of man-made hybrids and
selections and variegated mutants and everything out there. 'Variegated mutant', I think I've seen that
film, yeah and this is my grandiflora and as we are now in autumn in Australia, this was at its peak
a couple of months ago. In summer, the foliage is really large and beautiful and the flower had
these enormous white lily-like flowers. Did you sniff the fragrance? It was unbelievable - and my
experience has been that hostas do really well in pots, and I think that's how I'm able to control
the slugs and snails better because you scatter your organic pellets around as you plant
the tuber, so that those poor snails have gone to heaven before the hosta emerges. You've given up on
hostas, I have only just begun. And so the next cab off our summer for shade rank is going to
be a shrub, yes and in fact again a classic shrub that everybody knows likes a bit of shade, yes, and
that's the hydrangea. I mean it's a biggest genus - people don't realize how much diversity there
is - there are climbing ones, there are dwarf ones, there are large bushes almost verging on tree
ones. Hydrangeas in general fall into two major sort of groups - you have the lace cap ones which
have the bracketed flowers around the outside with the big petal-like bracts and the little tiny
petally flowers inside, and then you have the big mop headed ones which are basically nine-tenths
sterile hybrids forms of hydrangea macrophylla, which is (it's unfair to say) the common garden
hydrangea, but in fact it is the most commonly met with group of hydrangeas in gardens, so it's the
mop head type and in acid soils they'll be blue, in alkaline soils, they'll be pink- they're easy
to grow, they'll grow in coldish climates quite well, they'll cope with warmish climates, but they
do need plenty of summer moisture and depending on the variety, they need appropriate pruning
and are all of them shade lovers - almost all of them - there are one or two that will tolerate
a fairly open sunny aspect ,particularly amongst the mexican climbing species. And the other
hydrangea we visited last week was one of the North American species hydrangea quercifolia,
the oak leaf hydrangea - they are a wonderful shrub as much for their foliage, as their flowers and I
have to say many hydrangeas don't have foliage of huge merit, but the oak leaf one is fantastic - it
has leaves somewhat like a North American pin oak. In areas where you get cold winters, the foliage
gets the most fabulous burgundy colours in the foliage right through the winter- it doesn't
completely shed all its foliage - and you get these long conical heads of flowers instead of
the classical sort of rounded mop headed sort of flower that you expect from a normal hydrangea,
and so really there's something going on all year with that because you've got spring foliage
you've got summer flowers which then stay on and sort of dry - don't they - cut the season
and then you have the most amazing autumn foliage, and again, shade loving- not as much so as the
classical hydrangeas -the macrophyllas need a little more shade and certainly more moisture, so
the oak leaf hydrangea can come out of the shadows a little bit more - so it doesn't need as much water,
doesn't need as much shade and in fact if it's out in the open a little bit more it will actually
colour better in its foliage for its winter effect. Ah interesting - is it fair to say that most
of those hydrangeas grow in pots really well? They do as long as the pots are decent size and as
long as one keeps up with the appropriate watering. There we are Alexandra those are two of our spring and summer
flowering shrubs and perennials that love a bit of shade - over to you. I do agree, Stephen
and Matthew, I think hydrangeas are some of the best shade loving plants you can get and there are
just so many colors and shapes and styles, they're just fabulous and I've got a video which is in
the description below on how to grow hydrangeas, and now I think it's time for you to pop over to
the Horti-Culturalists channel and find out some more really great shade loving plants for summer
and autumn. There's a shady gardens playlist at the end of this video and if you'd like more tips,
ideas and inspiration for your garden, then do subscribe to the Middlesized Garden YouTube
channel, and thank you for watching, goodbye!
