Shade gardening success with The Horti-Culturalists + how to choose the best plants for shade

How to make your shady borders work brilliantly. Advice from Stephen Ryan of @thehorti-culturalists on how to choose and look after plants for shade and also find out what kind of shade you have! Then go over to the Hort-Culturalists to check out Flowering Plants for Shade: https://youtu.be/6ZIlhoFBrnU?si=L0aYg761VWTQNQMK
00:00 You have lots of choices in a shady garden
00:19 The Hort-Culturalists YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thehorti-culturalists
00:53 Define what sort of shade you have
02:02 How to increase the amount of light you have
03:02 What to plant in dry shade
04:33 Important tips about caring for new plants in dry shade
05:45 Planting under and around conifers
06:44 Lifting the crown of a conifer to gain more light
06:50 Can you put raised beds around conifers?
07:30 Understanding partial shade
08:30 Use a climbing hydrangea for a shady wall
08:46 The difference between morning and afternoon sun!
09:34 Plants for a border which has shade in the morning and sun in the afternoon
10:22 Plants for a border that gets morning sun and afternoon shade
11:03 What to plant in shady pots
11:42 Good foliage plants
13:10 How to experiment with what you plant in shady areas
14:39 Plant shade-loving self-seeders
15:35 Video on Flowering Plants for Shade:https://youtu.be/6ZIlhoFBrnU?si=L0aYg761VWTQNQMK

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When you think about what to plant in a shady part  of your garden, and you go to the garden center,   and you pick up plant after plant, and it all says  full sun, you might think that you don’t have many  

Options. But actually you have lots of options. So  it’s Alexandra here from The Middle-Sized Garden   YouTube channel and blog, and I’m here with plant  experts The Horti-Culturalists, and we’re going   to do two videos. And I’m going to talk about how  to plant in a shady garden, and Matthew Lucas and  

Steven Ryan of The Horti-Culturalists are going to  identify eight really brilliant plants that flower   in shade. So I’m going to start with asking you  two what do you plant in a shady garden? Matthew,   Steven – which one of you wants to pick this up?  Let’s just say Alexandra this Horti-Culturalist  

Is going to back off and leave it to the experts  – I’m going to go and try and find some flowering   plants for the shade while you two figure out the  bigger question. I’ll see you later. All right,  

Good. Well we need to define what sort of  shade we’re talking about. I regularly get   people who come into my nursery, and they say  I’ve got a shady garden and I need some things   for the garden, and when you question them you  actually find out that they have no idea what  

Sort of shade they’re actually working with.  And in fact sometimes it’s quite a sunny spot,   but it has an overhanging branch over it, so they  assume it’s shade. But then the sun comes in from   below the canopy. So you do need to assess the  shade. You probably need to have some sense of,  

You know, what it’s like at different times of  the year as well. Is it deciduous shade – so   you’re getting winter light but no summer light.  Is it permanent dense shade. Is it mottled shade.  

In Australia we have a lot of gardens that have  native trees in them which allow a lot more light   through than shade – because eucalyptus leaves  sit that way instead of that way – and so we get  

What we would call dappled or light shade. And so  there’s all these different types of shade. And   then it also comes down to soil conditions within  the shade. So is it dry shade under trees with big  

Invasive root systems? Is it in fact moist shade  against a shady wall? So you need to define what   sort of shade you’re working with. So is there  anything we can actually firstly do about the   shade? For example, if you’ve got some trees  there and would you advise cutting them down,  

Or is there something we can do to create more  light that doesn’t involve cutting the trees   down? Well I have to say cutting a tree down is  the final solution and I wouldn’t recommend it   most of the time. But there’s no reason why,  with a little bit of sensitivity, you can’t  

Lift canopies on trees or even thin canopies.  I mean I don’t like to see trees just hacked   back to encourage more light through them. I mean  that’s almost as bad as removing them completely,   because you ruin the form, shape and usefulness in  fact of the tree. So you want the tree to actually  

Still be part of the garden. So to do that  you need to probably bring in a professional,   and have the tree assessed properly, so you can  ameliorate the problem slightly by good tree   management.The issue is slightly different if it’s  a wall. Obviously you can’t do anything with that,  

So you have to work within the constraints you’ve  got. So let’s start with that dry shady wall. All   right. What would you recommend for that? If you  had a really dry shady spot, I mean certainly the   classical plant we would use in Australia that’s  flowering, that will grow in really dry shade,  

Of course is the clavia. It’s just one of those  plants that is used everywhere here from Melbourne   to Toowoomba – everybody grows them. But if I was  in the northern hemisphere, I mean there’s a plant   that some people consider quite weedy that I  think is a very useful plant in dried shade,  

And that’s Iris foetidissima, unfortunately  called stinking Gladwin or beef steak plant,   which is a wonderful strappy foliage plant –  nice flowers, attractive seed pods, does have a   propensity to self seed around, but then wouldn’t  you rather work with a plant that you’ve got to  

Manage than one that you’ve got to mollycoddle?  Well, there’s surprisingly a number of ferns that   will cope quite well in dry shade. And we have  a local native one here that I use in my own   garden – polystichum setiferum, the Mother Shield  fern – and it’s cold hardy, it’s drought tolerant,  

And of course like other ferns it likes to be in  the shade. So, you could use that. And of course   something that is almost too common to remember  occasionally, is Saxifraga stolonifera – Mother   of Thousands. It’s a wonderful little plant. It  runs like a strawberry. It has little sort of  

Runners that come out and a new little plant forms  on the end. It has beautifully marbled foliage,   and in fact there’s a rather handsome one with  a pink variegated edge to the leaves which is   worth looking out for – I think called tricolour.  So what do people need to remember when they are  

Planting plants in dry shade? Alright, there’s a  few things that I would always consider when I’m   doing that. First remember that if you’re buying  plants from a nursery, they’ve been in pots,   in potting mix, watered, fed, looked after –  probably in much the same way as all the other  

Plants in the nursery were – so they haven’t been  weaned off all of the things that they were going   to get at the nursery. So you have to do that. So  you need to make sure that the hole is big enough  

So there’s not too much root competition initially  for the root system of the new plants. You will   need to keep them well watered, particularly the  first summer in the case of most of them. And a   little bit of extra feeding would probably be  a good idea, because especially if it’s shade  

Under a large tree the ground will be somewhat  depleted of nutrients. So make sure they get a   little bit of a feed, whether it be some sort  of organic fertilizer or even perhaps a slow   release pelletized fertilizer, that you can put  underneath the root system. So give them lots  

Of care and attention at least for that first  summer to get them through. Once their roots   are well established, if they’re naturally capable  of coping with dry shade, then after that period   they should be a lot better off and they won’t  need so much mollycoddling. And what about – and  

This is a question I get a lot – is people saying  I’ve got some heavy Conifer trees, you know, what   can I grow under there? Yeah well, that is taking  the shade probably to its fullest extent. You’ve   not only got incredibly dense shade, so there’s  virtually no direct light getting through at all,  

But you’ve also got a matty root system, because  conifers have a fibrous star root system, and if   anybody’s ever dug around one you can realize just  how difficult it can be to actually get something   established in there. I don’t think there’s  terribly many flowering plants that will do it,  

Certainly in the southern hemisphere – clivia are  probably one of the few – but there’s certainly   some very good foliage plants that would do  the job. Things like ruscus, danae which is is   related to ruscus anyway, and things like fatsia  japonica, will grow in those sort of conditions,  

And actually has quite handsome flowers as well.  So there are a number of plants, but the harder   the conditions the smaller the pallet of plants  that’s going to work. Actually one of the things   you can do is, as you said, lift the skirt of the  conifers. That’s something we’ve done recently,  

And that’s just to increase the amount of  sunlight. Is it all right for example to put   raised beds quite close to conifers, to try and  get over this business of the root, or is that a  

Problem. That can be a problem for the health of  the conifer, and in fact it can be a problem with   the health of any tree if you lift the soil level  up substantially, because obviously the tree will  

Struggle to get enough air. So they’re not going  to be able to breathe properly, and you can slowly   smother trees by putting things like that around.  Having said that, if it’s a small area perhaps in   front of the tree and you’re not disturbing the  back of the root system, you could probably get  

Away with it as long as you’re a bit careful. And  what about partial shade? I mean one of the things   I’d be most interested in this garden is that  there’s a lot of trees, there’s a lot of shade,  

And yet the lilies are doing fantastically  well. So would you say that lilies are good   for partial shade, and if so what sort of partial  shade? Yeah well, I would suggest that lilies are   definitely for the sort of shade where you get a  little bit of dappled light through all the time,  

And perhaps get a little bit of direct sun,  perhaps early morning or late afternoon,   just to give them that extra bit of feeding time  for their photosynthesis. And as long as the soil   is is moist, because lilies don’t really like dry  conditions, you’ll probably grow them quite well.  

And the same can be said to a large extent about  that wonderful and huge genus the hydrangea. I   mean there’s so many different hydrangeas you  can select from, some of which will cope with   comparatively heavy shade, and the rest of  them will cope well with dappled shade. So,  

And they’re good long summer flowering shrubs,  and you know there’s small ones, there’s big   bushy ones and there’s even climbing ones that  you could look at, to be useful. In fact some of   the climbing hydrangeas will cope with amazingly  dark shade. So if you’ve got that wall that you  

Want to cover, that’s in the northern hemisphere  facing north, then some of the climbing hydrangeas   are absolutely perfect for those conditions.  And you mentioned morning and afternoon sun.   Now am I right in thinking that if you have a  border that gets the morning sun, and you have  

A border that gets the afternoon sun, that is  a different kind of sun and shade? Oh yes yes,   and in fact morning sun is generally comparatively  benign, because the heat hasn’t started to build   for the day and so forth, but if you’ve got a  border where the plants are in shade all morning  

And then suddenly get a blast of the afternoon sun  – and that’s particularly a problem here in the   southern hemisphere where we can get exceedingly  hot summer days – the plants don’t get a chance   to adapt. So you know they’ve had this benign cool  conditions for the morning and then suddenly you  

Know it’s 38° Celsius – and the sun’s blasting  straight in on them. And so a different pallet of   plants would probably be needed. So if you’ve got  a border that’s sunny in the afternoon, what would   you recommend the plants for that? All right well,  I would suggest that you’re actually working then  

With a border that is more a sun border than a  shade border. So it would be more plants that you   would buy from the nursery that are sun lovers,  that in fact don’t mind if they don’t get the  

Whole day sun. So you know it could be any amount  of different flowering shrubs and things. If it’s   going to be fairly dark through the winter months,  I would definitely recommend looking at deciduous   shrubs, because they don’t care how dark it is  in the winter, because they’ve got no foliage.  

But if they’re going to get a blast of summer sun,  then there’s a whole range of deciduous plants you   could look – lilacs, deutzias, spireas – all sorts  of shrubs that will actually do that quite well.  

And being deciduous, they’re not going to have to  worry about whether they get winter light. And in   terms of your border that only gets morning sun,  what would be some good recommendations for that?   All right well, certainly the hydrangeas come  into that. If they’ve got adequate moisture,  

They are perfect for those sorts of areas.  And you will find probably that things like,   well in the right growing conditions, azaleas and  rhododendrons would be fine, and would give you   good spring blossom; Mollis azaleas, which are  still rhododendrons anyway, but they also have  

The advantage of often throwing autumn colour as  well as spring blossom – and some good perfume   occasionally as well. So there’s a whole range of  plants like that, that would cope quite well where   they just got a little bit of the morning sun,  and then shade in the afternoon. And what about  

Shade and pots? Because you sort of think well  you can do anything you like in pots, because   you can always move the pot, but on the other  hand if people want say pots for their back door  

And it’s a very shady area, what would you say  good plants for shade in pots? All right, well,   we actually did a video quite recently on hostas,  and for instance, which are great in pots because   you can lift them up away from slug and snail  predation a bit. They’ve got great foliage on  

Them. They do die down in the winter, so they’re  not permanent pot plants, if you’re looking for   something that’s going to do their job all year  round. But they give you good foliage from spring   right through till autumn, and most of them have  very attractive flowers in high summer, and some  

Of them are even perfumed. One of the things we’re  always being told is that if it’s shady then go   for foliage plants rather than flowering plants  – and I think we all want some flowers – but  

What would you advise in terms of foliage plants  for shade? The gamut is huge when you’re talking   about foliage plants, because plants that  have developed to require a shady condition   often have big and bold leaves, because they’re  trying to draw in as much light as possible,  

So that they can photosynthesize. So some of our  great sort of tropical looking plants that we can   use in our gardens, both in the north and in the  southern hemisphere, are in fact foliage plants   mainly, and there’s a whole range of them. There’s  anything in the aralia family – so that’s fatsias,  

Ivies, all those sorts of things – they all have  big and bold and interesting leaves and have   become exceedingly collectible plants. Of course  the ubiquitous old aucuba. People go “oh aucuba”,   but you know there’s some really good cultivars  out there. And even the common old spotted Laurel  

Is a very useful shrub in the shade. I think  people should you know stop being so snobbish   about them, and in actual fact engage with them,  because I think they’re fabulous plants. All the   asparagus family – so the ruscuses, the danaes  and the true asparaguses, the ornamental ones  

Particularly – are all quite good shade tolerant  plants and give good permanent and interesting   foliage. So there’s oodles of genera that will  grow well in those dark shady corners. I’ve got   a really shady, north facing, two evergreen  trees, big wall, border – ultimate shade,  

And there are a few plants that are supposed to  need full sun that do really well there. Yeah. So   I think that sometimes for some reason plants just  take it into their heads that they are going to do  

What they want to do, and not follow the rules.  In terms of experimenting with plants for shade,   what would you suggest people do to experiment?  All right, well, don’t spend a lot of money for   a start. But yes, a lot of plants will adapt  far better than you would realize, to quite  

Different growing conditions to what they’d grow  in naturally. I mean when you think about it we’ve   moved plants all over the world as garden plants,  and you can have things from the Himalayas growing   next to things from Japan, growing next to things  from South Africa. I mean the world is full of  

Interesting plants that will have a broader range  of adaptation than they would naturally have in   the wild. Some things turn out to be much cold  hardy than you would anticipate from the natural   habitat they come from. So I certainly don’t  have any issues with a bit of experimenting,  

But of course you have to get your core species in  place, that are going to hold the border together,   so that if that plant you bought that you  think “oh well I’ll just try it” doesn’t work,  

Well it’s not the end of the world. But there’s  oodles of things that will often flower or grow   well where you weren’t expecting them. And in  fact I find in my own garden quite often things  

That are self seeders and things that will often  pop up in a place in the garden that I wouldn’t   have thought to put them in, but somehow or  other they settled themselves in there, and   because they weren’t planted from a pot into that  spot, they have made that decision, and they often  

Work really well. So self seeders that will grow  in the shade can be well worth looking out for,   and there’s a whole range of shade tolerant  self seeders. I mean you’ve only got to look   at things like lunaria the Honesty, there’s the  smyrniums which flower madly in the shade. I mean  

Even ubiquitous things like forget-me-nots and  foxgloves and things are all plants that will find   their own way into the amount of light that they  really are happy in. So yes, I like to encourage  

Those plants to find their own way. But of course  one of the things we all most want is plants that   flower in shade, and Matthew’s been off looking  around the garden for some of the best plants that  

Flower in shade. And where is he? Matthew, would  you like to come. Oh, I’m stumbling over dogs.   Well there’s some beautiful things in this garden,  and some beautiful things in Steven’s garden,   that flower in shade. So Alexandra, I think you  should come and have a look at those. Let’s go  

Across and look at this video here, with eight  flowering plants that look fabulous in shade.