Add Excitement to Shade with Perennials

The truth about a newly planted landscape is that it's in full sun until trees mature enough to cast shade. As shade increases the sun loving plants you started out with begin to fail for lack of light. At some point it is essential to redesign the planting to suit the new sheltered environment using plants that are just as bright and colorful as their predecessors.

Perennials for Shade

Ajuga reptans

Carpet Bugle

Astilbe Koblenz

Astilbe

Brunnera macrophylla

Siberian Bulgoss

Epimedium versicolor

Fairy Wings

Heuchera hybrids

Heuchera Coral Bells

Helleborus niger

Christmas Rose

Dicentra spectabilis

Bleeding heart

Lamium maculatum

Spotted Deadnettle

Pulmonaria officinalis

Lungwort

Tiarella polyphylla

Foamflower

Plants that evolve on the forest floor are the best problem solver for shady, moist conditions beneath shade trees.

The best source of plants will be those that originate in forests around the world. This environment is known as the "understory" where perennials thrive in the decomposing leaf litter that makes soils slightly acidic. Take your cue from the natural world with plants that evolved to solve your shade tree problems with beautiful herbaceous plant and their bright flowers.

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