Perennials 3 | Plants for Shade | FAQ: Garden Home Vlog (2019) 4K

[Music] hey there welcome to the show today I've got a special presentation for you that's focused on problem areas for a lot of you out there and that's what do you plant the shade I get these questions all the time and by the way I want to just thank everyone for joining us subscribing listening to us on our podcast going to the vlog checking us out on YouTube it's really great to hear where you're from it's kind of fun to see which states are kind of in the lead right now we got California and Texas pulling out ahead I want to hear more from my friends in Michigan and Illinois and we got a lots from Pennsylvania but it's a lot of fun to see where you're coming from and what your questions are so let's get started about shade when I had the good fortune to be a graduate student in garden history and design in England I became a member of the royal horticultural society by examination and what I learned there at the RHS was that there's so many opportunities for us in the shade and if you focus on texture first and foremost texture can really create a beautifully visually compelling garden doesn't mean you have to give up on color and we're going to talk about some of my favorite ways to bring that little bit of sparkle into some of those shady and troublesome areas okay and I'm also going to answer a few questions today that you all have sit in love getting those they're always fun to answer so why don't we get started with some of my favorite shade plants today we're focusing strictly on perennials I know I know you love perennials I love perennials who doesn't love perennials because they come back year after year probably the top two perennials for shade would have to be the hosta as you can see it's very well represented here and ferns but there's some other players out there that I want you to know about they can add a lot of pizzazz to those shady areas now first let's define what is a shade garden all right so shade partial shade deep shade Sun full Sun all of these things could be a little confusing I think full Sun is pretty clear I think dense shade is pretty clear that's where you're getting very little light I think where we can do the best with our plants is when we have dappled light and shade where you get a little bit of shade or you get some a few hours in the early morning that's usually plenty of light for many of these shade perennials now if we start with hosta which is the old standby and if you've gotten into hostas and believe me I know I know about you people out there there's some real hosta holics out there who go crazy over these things I mean I have a friend who's got probably a hundred and ninety different varieties of hostas I mean it's like that's all he thinks about her hostas I love them but I'm not that far into it some of my favorites are the old varieties like this one this is Old Crow so regal now crosa regal what I like about it is it's got this blue gray foliage so let's talk just a moment about hosta foliage and hosta color because what you can get with hosta is you can go anywhere from the tiny miniature hostas to the great big leafed ones like komodo dragon or empress wu those are two of the largest that you'll ever find in a garden also we need to talk a little bit about the texture you can get hostas that have strap leaves tuss does that have tiny little mouse ear like leaves you can find hostas with big round more ovate leaves but many of them are strapped like leaves as you can see here with crosa regal the other thing to keep in mind is the color of the leaf of hosta you can see this is Glaucus as we say in the trade or blue gray green here but some of them are very much in the chartreuse family like if you're looking for a big one and you like that chartreuse color try some and substance that is an amazing hosta it's the kind of hosta you would use like Komodo dragon or Empress Wu as a focal point but what I like about some in substance is it's chartreuse so you get this illumination in the garden it's almost like this it's radiating light it's a bowl of light in the garden so let's talk now about color and variation in hosta because that's how you can bring dappled light into a space just in your mind's eye think about walking down a woodland path and if all the hosta there that you're using let's just say for instance you've gone crazy for hosta like my friend you've gone with all greens and they're all all the same color that's not quite as interesting it can be with texture but it's not quite as interesting is if you mix in some of those colored hosta some with some variegation now like this one you can see this one has a cream or ivory colored edge on it which is really quite beautiful and this sparkles in the shade because of the light color so if we just take for instance the juxtaposition of these two hostas they have similar leaf texture sized right kro so regal as I just said bluish gray color and then this is called blue ivory it has a similar blue cast to it not quite as much as you see with the crows regal but it has this very definite ivory edge on it hence the name blue ivory so you will see that these lighter plants these variegated hostas will really add a lot of pizazz and the I want to move on from hosta into some of the other shade perennials that are so important probably the second most important one for me anyway are ferns there are so many wonderful native North American ferns and then when you start casting the net and you start looking at ferns worldwide my gosh there are so many to choose from up here you can see one that's just just emerging this is one of my favorite Native American ferns this one's called cinnamon fern oz Munda cinnamon aia that's its botanical name but don't be thrown off by these botanical names but what I love about these is they can get almost four feet tall and the reason they're called cinnamon ferns is they'll put up a stalk in the center in the summer that's cinnamon colored it looks like a cinnamon stick in a way and that's where it gets its name cinnamon fern it also is a very close cousin called oz Munda Regulus and the name regalis suggests its name it's the royal fern and both of those are excellent Native American ferns that are very very Hardy that's the great thing about so many of these ferns and hostas for our friends in the north you can grow these things like nobody's business in your garden and you know that what you do know is that the deer tend to love hosta so you know you need to make plans to manage the salad bar in your garden and do what you can to keep the deer out there less prone to eat ferns but they do love to eat hosta so I'm just being straight up with you about that what do you do about deer look fencing obviously helps always kid and say you know we post a lot of venison recipes around the garden they read them they're on social media they tell their friends and they stay away they get the idea they don't want to end up in the crock-pot but you know deer are a problem everywhere and you know I'd love to hear some of your cures for deer we'll share those with our friends who are listening and watching the show now the other thing I want to point out here among some of these shade plants is that you can also do layers layers of color layers of texture starting with low ground covers and I've brought a few of these shade lovers in here just to share with you today for instance here in front I've got this gorgeous chartreuse creeping Jenny it's a it's called a Liz machia very Hardy it's a it's a plant that you can grow between stones if you're if you're walking down your woodland path in your garden in the shade this is an excellent plant for growing between those stones or as a ground cover what you will find is that the the denser the shade the the greener creeping Jenny goes typically creeping Jenny is very chartreuse can be very very gold and the more Sun it gets and this is one of these plants that will grow in both Sun and shade I've planted it in deep shade it goes very green I've also planted it in full hot Sun and it goes very very chartreuse so just think about that but what I love about it are these elongated runners that have the believes symmetrically offset on the runner and what is wonderful about this is everywhere that runner touches the ground right here at the node where the leaves meet the stem if that touches the ground you will begin to see some tiny little roots just like here I don't know if you can see that or not all right where the little leaves meet the stem it's already producing a little root and this is what makes this plant such a great addition to a shade path so if we begin to think about this tearing up from the edge of the path moving our way up to larger plants this is a great plant for a ground cover I've also brought another one in here that you may know this one is a little there gated ajuga or trumpet bugle it can take very cold temperatures what I love about it this particular variety this is a variegated one you can see it has a white edge on the leaf the leaf green is a little bit of that bluish gray like we saw over here with the color of the hosta this crow so regal very similar blue gray this has a little bit of a vein of purple in it which is very nice many of you may know ajuga as the there's one called chocolate chip that's very very dark there's a wide range of these adjuchas they are perfect companion plants good bedfellows as we say in the shade perennial garden so think about some of these adjuchas this is one that I just lifted out of the garden it's looking a little disheveled this morning because it's been been lifted out but we'll put it back in its home but it was important for me to show you how early it flowers and it says it finishes flowers with these beautiful purple spikes if you have time just pinch those off by just pinching off some of these spent blooms what you'll do is you'll get a recurrence of flowers through the summer and it's just a beautiful plant with that variegated foliage but again check out some of the other juegos there's some tiny leaved ones some very dark colored ones which are a little hard to see in the shade keep that in mind if you use the really dark ones contrast them with something light so that contrast of light to dark foliage really helps us to to see the composition and to and it makes it more visually compelling alright now I want to talk about another plant that both has a gorgeous leaf we grow it for its leaf and we also grow it for its foliage and these are the hookahs this is a wonderful one here this is just a tiny example of the range that you can see in these heuchera that's a botanical name alright who are there many hookahs that are native to North America makes them really tough plants they can take the cold what's wonderful about them is that the horticultural breeders have come up with so many different variations in leaf color and even pattern now this is a beautiful one called carnival watermelon and as you can see I'm going to describe this for our friends who are listening to us by podcast the back side of this is purplish pink where the top side of the leaf has this distinct sort of apricot bronze color to the leaf Wow I mean this is really great color for the shade don't you think now if you look at some of the other varieties they can be almost metallic very silver probably some of the earliest ones that came on to the market that really got us excited about heuchera and their use in the garden were the dark burgundy leafed ones almost the color of like a Japanese maple there's one called Pallas purple that I've used for years now it's too early in the season now for you to see these bloom but they get their name from a tall spike that come out of this base of beautiful foliage tall spiked with lots of little tiny flowers on it very transparent very ethereal looking and this is a plant that I find really extraordinary for containers now I want to talk just a moment about containers because I think we so often think oh heck I've got a shade garden what am I gonna grow in the containers it's really not much I can maybe I put in some impatience but hey they're annuals last year I did a series of shade perennial containers okay and we captured what those look like when I planted them when I finished them and then what they ended up looking like deep into the summer but what I'm going to show you today is after a long winter long and wet winter with no care what came back and you can look here and see this container I'm gonna pull these hostile in the way just for a moment but you can see here in this pot I used for my and you know my rule of thumb on containers in terms of plant forms the tall spiky the round full something to cascade the filler is here the Spiller is coming over the edge and then we've got our thriller coming out of the top so thriller filler and Spiller so here you can see this is an autumn fern that's why the foliage looks bronze in color now you can see a little damage from last year's foliage can you believe it wintered over that we got some frost to burn here but it's still hung on we're in zone eight a and so that gives you a little bit of a reference but any of these ferns will work I just like using this one because it had that touch of color here's our old friend creeping Jenny as our Spiller coming over the edge of touch of chartreuse here we've talked about this grass before this is ogen OG o n ogon a wonderful perennial grass is a actually a type of sedge and what we love about this grass is that it has that gorgeous chartreuse color so you've got this color echo going back and forth between creeping jenny and the ogon grass i've planted these in a terra cotta container just brought it in from the garden for you to see and the color of the terra cotta container you can see is echoed in the new fronds that's what you call the stem of a fern a frond it is virtually the same color as that terra cotta container and then we would be remiss if we didn't talk about our old friend crow so regal we've got that hosta that's come back in here and these perennials all wintered over last year but absolutely no care whatsoever so you can see they are tough and so I have to replant this container this year it's going to come on strong now I'll need to go in here and clean it up a little bit and clip out some of these fronds that are showing a little bit of damage but you can see these fiddleheads the fiddlehead is the emerging frond it unrolls it looks like the end of a fiddle hence its name and these fiddleheads are rolling out this reminds me of a joke a friend told me once anemones japanese anemones also will bloom in a shade garden they need a little bit of Sun the joke is hey with fronds like these fern fronds who needs anemones get it alright so there's my ninth grade joke for you okay so now what I want to talk about our other bloomers in the shade garden because let's face it we all love flowers right so I've brought in a few here that I'm pretty excited about what you have here is a beautiful foxglove now here's something dear morning so if you're looking for a biennial some of these foxgloves are more perennial than others but this is a plant that the deer will not eat but just look at the gorgeous colors on these if you love foxglove like I think you love foxglove just get into some of the varieties and colors oh my gosh applica pure white dark purple these are fantastic with almost have an orange Center and a darker outer color of sort of raspberry pink we just make them absolutely fantastic so think about some of these and then here tucked behind is a late flowering perennial that I want you to know about that will take the shade and it's it's you know I think it's foliage is really beautiful this is a toad lily or tri syrtis there are lots of different types of tri-service and this particular one has a little bit of a variation to it it's just now emerging so you can you can barely see just some of that variation on the edge of the leaf it's slightly chartreuse now what's wonderful about tri-service or the toad lilies is that they're gonna come along late in the season early on you're gonna have your foxglove your a jugo these things are going to be blooming in the shade are your Epimetheus another plant we should talk about because they take dry shady conditions wonderful little ground cover at the medium remember that but this tri-service will flower with little orchid like blooms late in the summer this plant is undaunted by the heat it will grow in a wide range of the country it's another plant if you're not growing it you should really think about it it's one that I'm I recommend I've grown it for years another one to think about that blooms late about the time of the try syrtis or toad lily is the Japanese anemone now if you get these right in your garden plant them in soil that is rich in houmous give them about half a day Sun they will bloom for you every late season in pink white there's a white one called home arrange obey spelled J OB ERT a fantastic old variety I saw it first as a graduate student in England and did backflips over it and it is really fantastic so that's a good one to put like at the edge of your shade garden be patient with it it will bloom for you and late in the late season and again very very cold hardy okay now let's get to the part of the show that I enjoy probably the most giving you a little tutorial on shade and now we're going to answer some questions you guys just keep them coming all right we've got one from Paula Jackson and she's saying Allen how do I plant elephant ears it's is it full sun shade give me some help she bought the jumbo type planted some years ago but can't remember how to do them so let me give you a little 101 on on elephant ears so when we talk about elephant ears generally it gets a little confusing because they're they're divided into two groups you've got the allocations and you've got the collocations alright so the best way I remember to identify a Alocasia is that they are pointed upward alright so you've got the stalk that comes up you've got this big leaf hence the name elephant ear and the tip of that is pointed upward on the coal acacia what you find is the coal acacia tends to have the point of the elephant ear pointing downwards ok all right so that's the first distinction the reason you want to make that distinction is because how and where you plant them plays a role here all right so the allocations those big ones with points they can take a little bit of Sun whether you want to be careful with is these really aren't considered full Sun plants I've seen them in certain parts of the country doing very well in full Sun if you live in the north they have to be dug up because they will freeze the bulbs are not Hardy they will freeze but for southern gardeners many of them can leave them in the garden and mulch them heavily at the end of the season after cutting the stalks back we tend to dig our bulbs up and just put them in a dry cool place but back to the allocation that's the big one with the leaf pointing upward you want to make sure that that is planted in soil that is rich in houmous and drains very very well if you're planting collocations the ones where the tip points down those can take wet feet meaning some of them can actually be planted in standing water and do very very well all right there's one that we planted called black magic several years ago dark leaf sets a beautiful contrast great for a water garden I don't know if you guys are into water gardening or not but this is one that you can like a canna or a Louisiana iris you can put them directly in the water and they will bloom and flourish so think about that if you've got a wet soggy place that you just never it never dries up this is a great plant for those kinds of areas the other thing about elephant ears is kind of interesting is the collocations are edible not so much the allocations there are many of those that are poisonous so the colocasia ism certain cultures for instance um Hawaii I've loved having a colocasia it's called taro but you know if you if you're not sure what you have don't be eating your elephant ears just enjoy them in the garden Sao Paulo for a little recap on these remember little shade helps full Sun can blister the leaves I'm not sure where you live so if you're living in a hot part of the country Florida the Texas they're going to burn in the hot Sun the other thing to do you ask about the bulb how to plant it if you look at the bulb you will see that the the point there's a tip on the bulb and that needs to go upward you know these can be rather large bulbs many of them the size of a coconut and then often you'll see on the bottom what's called the basal plate some of the little root hairs from the previous seasons growth just watch out for that those you want to Center down in the bottom of the hole with that pointed top emerging I've actually find them upside down before and they've grown back up and around so they're pretty forgiving plants and I love them if you're looking for bold texture in the garden these elephant ears allocations colocasia is either one and banana plants are both amazing in the garden for giving you that really amazing textural contrast alright here's another question regarding shade this is from Kay green kay is in Colorado wants to grow something under apple tree very dry and zone 5 gets dappled Sun all day she's tried bee balm hydrangea and a shade flower seed mix with no luck ooh dry shade epimysium x' look into the Epimetheus they are fantastic it's one of the best shade perennials for dry dry shade those dry conditions the other thing you might think about is trying to establish your state flower in Colorado I bet you know what it is the Columbine beautiful beautiful varieties of Columbine there's a mechana yellow that gets very beautiful and it will reseed itself so I'm thinking if you started with some of these these columbines they would recede each year and you would always have them coming back whether the plant made it through the dry summer or not and it sounds like it wouldn't hurt for you to maybe put out a a soaker hose or some sort of drip irrigation maybe around that apple tree to give those plants a little bit of help during the summer because when it gets dry what happens is the apple trees the big guy is taking all of that moisture and nutrient up and using it and these little guys that are shallow rooted they're struggling so I hope that's helpful now I want to go back to hosta for just a minute as you know I'll cure eight plants for Gilbert H wild and Sun and in Missouri been in business growing perennials since 1885 mail-order and they are running a special reduce every year which people love a sellout but I want to give you a clue before they do sell out they do a program called hosta by the handful I've seen Gardens where gardeners have done a landscape a ground cover of hosta in full shade and it's fantastic so they send mixed hostas hosta by the handful I don't remember what the price is I think for a hundred hostas it's like I don't know hundred bucks and they ship them to you and you can get them planted in the garden they'll all emerge and you'll get this blanket of beautiful foliage like this all right I just want to thank you all for following me on our podcast if you want to see the visual side of this and see us in studio and see these plants you can do that with our vlog follow us on YouTube please subscribe to my channel and keep those comments coming it's a lot of fun and hey we're open for tours at Moss mountain farm if you hadn't been down to see us May and June fantastic months to see the roses and a lot of these perennials we're talking about ok until next time signing off alan smith if you like this video be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel and be sure to ring the bell for notifications [Music]

Channel: P. Allen Smith

Views: 465,325

Rating: 4.9233189 out of 5

Keywords: shade plants, full shade plants, perennial shade plants, plants for shade, full shade perennials, shade loving plants, plants for full shade, full shade garden, garden home vlog, ajuga plant, toad lilies, perennials garden, perennials plants, p allen smith garden home, garden home, p allen smith, p. allen smith, gardening (interest), garden design, hosta plant, ferns plants, creeping jenny ground cover, heuchera plants, foxglove plant, digitalis, companion planting

Id: g2LlvJrDxnU

Length: 29min 20sec (1760 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2019