Perennial Shade Plants

With so many beautiful plants to choose from, it is often easy to overlook the growing conditions in their gardens, especially shady areas that might be forgotten.

However, there really is no need to worry. There are plenty of beautiful plants that thrive in perennial shade gardens.

By selecting plants that offer different bloom times and serve different functions in the garden, you can fill the shadiest beds with continuous color.

Spring-blooming Shade Perennials

Many beautiful spring blooming plants are available for a perennial shade garden.

Varieties of Astilbe, such as Bridal Veil with white flowers, and Fanal with blood-red flowers, bloom in the shade.

All varieties of aquilegia, dianthus, geranium and heuchera are perennial shade plants that bloom in the spring. Astilbe, aquilegia, dianthus and heuchera attract hummingbirds and butterflies to your garden.

Old-fashioned bleeding heart plants thrive in the shade and bloom in the late spring and early summer with white and pink flowers, blooming through the whole growing season.

Summer-blooming Shade Perennials

Summer blooming perennial shade plants include all varieties of campanula, coral bells, dianthus, hosta, lamium maculatum, liatris, monarda, penstemon and platycodon grandiforus.

These shade perennials not only prefer a low light area, but will thrive in it.

Hosta and coral bells are grown for their colorful, textured foliage more than the flowers they produce.

It is especially important to grow these plants in cool shady areas so they will flourish in the hot summer months.

Most of these plants provide splashes of muted colored textures to your perennial shade garden.

Fall-blooming Shade Perennials

Cyclamen, which have frost hardy varieties, bloom in shades of pink, purple or white in fall.

Toad Lilies, an exotic shade loving perennial, produce beautiful foliage and fall blooming flowers.

Sedum shows off its delicate flowers in late summer into fall. This plant also makes a good groundcover for shady areas.

Groundcover Shade Perennials

Fill in between your perennial shade plants with groundcovers such as goutweed, lily-of-the-valley, pachysandra, violets, sweet woodruff, and creeping myrtle.

These low-growing perennials will fill in bare spots, add color and texture and tie plantings together in your beds, while helping to prevent weeds. When grown on hillsides, groundcovers also help to prevent erosion.

Moisture in a perennial shade garden

If plants are shaded by or grown near a large tree, they may not receive an adequate amount of water from rainfall.

Overhanging tress direct moisture away from the plants beneath and will compete for water that falls on the ground.

Be sure to water your shade garden regularly, and add a thick 3-5 inch layer of mulch to the bed to hold in moisture.

With a little planning, you can select a variety of shade perennials that will thrive in the darkest areas of your garden.