Help! What do I plant?

[catjac1975]

When I first was gardening I would take note of what was in bloom in gardens as I drove around. Eventually I evolved to where I always had something in bloom by observing and acquiring things in bloom locally at specific times.

 

[Smart Red]

My shade garden is the pride and joy of my flowering gardens. Here is a list of most of the plants I have there.

Astilbe - whites, reds, pinks and a lavender
Bergeinia - 3 varieties
Bleeding heart - white, traditional, yellow foliage, fern-leaf (a white and a pink/red)
Blood root
Columbine 4 varieties
Cimicifuga racemosa (mine is white, but I'm checking out the pink this year)
Dutchmans breeches
English Primrose 4 colors
Ferns - hardy fern collection - plus maiden hair, fiddlestick, cinnamon, Japanese painted, silver-ghost, and two others
Fuchsia Magellanica
Geraniums, hardy (cranesbill) - blue, pink, Birchs double, Sanguimeum, Johnsons blue, Sanguimeum album, Sanguineum striatum, Wild geranium
Goats beard
Heucheria - 7 varieties
Heuch-tirellia - 4 varieties
Hosta - more than 10 varieties (35 more in a hosta garden)
Hydrangea - Dwf forever pink, Annable, and 5 other varieties
Jack in the Pulpit
Japanese lily
Lamium- white, pink and lavender
Lily of the Valley - while
Monkshood 2 colors (with more to go)
Polemonium - Brise D Jnjou
Pulminaria - three varieties
Solomons seal, Variegated and green
Tirellia - Foam flower - one white, one pink
Trillium - grandiforum, yellow luteum, lemon, great white,Trillium purple
Trollius (just saw a new variety today that I want)
Virginia blue bells
Wood violet - purple, violet, white, and mixed colors
Along with a few more things Ive forgotten the names of.

Love, Smart Red

 

[thistlebloom]

Late to the party, and wow! what a lot of great advice! ...and plant suggestions! You have an enormous list now Lorelai!
I didn't see Pulmonaria listed, and I don't think Brunnera was there either.
Steve, I love that idea of continual bloom by changing out pots, something I would put on my list to do, but realistically probably never get myself organized to accomplish it. At least I'm finally getting realistic...

Oops, I see Red has Pulmonaria listed!

 

[digitS']

Never been organized enuf for it either, Thistle'.

. . . just looking at Smart Red's shade garden list . . .

oh.my.stars.and.garters!

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Great list Smart!!!

See how smart Smart is?

 

[thistlebloom]

I just remembered another shade favorite! Meadow rue (thalictrum). It's a good one to add some height, mine gets almost 6' tall.

.....and meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria ) for part shade, long bloom, and fragrant.

 

[897tgigvib]

Don't forget to work in tons of compost to have deep rich forest understory type soil. Most of the shade lovers want that.

Remember, they live by being very effective photosynthesizers. Some will have lush and slow steady growth. Some of these are easy and some are difficult. Monkshood for example can be difficult. Some of the available domesticated ones are touchy, but those that are wild can be easy. Our wild monkshood around here produce flowers every bit as beautiful but the plant is a wispy thing with not much to it. Actually seems held up by the grasses it grows amongst. On the other hand, Huecheras are almost always easy.

Another thing about shade lovers is a higher portion of them do seem to prefer slightly more acidic soils, the kind of soil with peat moss added. Strangely, some also grow in acidic soil that has natural limestone in it or as the bedrock. That is on e of the reasons I so much would like to understand soils more. Monty's soil explanations are therefore very interesting to me.

What I'm beginning to understand comes to these 2 complicated words, cation and saturation. So far that basically means that very organic soils can be what I've been calling strong, with things in it that should make it both acidic and base, but letting the plants in it have more ability to grow.

Huechera are one of those that do well in this strong forest type soil. Maybe that is what makes them easy.

For annuals, there are also some annual Saxifrages. They are more popular in europe. We have some wild ones here. Outwardly the plant seems like a dandelion until it does an early season bloom.

There are other shade daisies with smaller plants and flowers. Some Coreopsis tolerate shade well. Inula is another shade daisy. Our wild ones are bright as can be at forest edges.

 

[digitS']

Here is a little information from the USDA on:

Bellingham soil series (click)

None are above a 6.6 pH and none below 5.8 - essentially neutral to moderately acidic. It isn't comprehensive but doesn't seem surprising. Mt. Vernon farm country also has slightly acidic soil. Lots of rain every year and a lot of organic material, mostly in the form of evergreens and maples.

A contrast to most of the soils on the east side of the Cascade Mountains.

Steve

 

[bj taylor]

my two cents is to stagger the heights of your plants (whatever you choose). in my opinion, having something vining like clematis or climbing hydrangea (which i have no experience with but sounds lovely) included in the mix can help keep the image dynamic & interesting.
i'm a big foliage fan, so ferns & hostas bring alot to the situation and using plants that are spikey bring archetectural interest. using some plants in the mix that have varigated foliage makes the light play over the bed more interesting.

hope you have great success building beautiful beds.

 

[Lorelai]

Late to the party, and wow! what a lot of great advice! ...and plant suggestions! You have an enormous list now Lorelai!
I didn't see Pulmonaria listed, and I don't think Brunnera was there either.
Steve, I love that idea of continual bloom by changing out pots, something I would put on my list to do, but realistically probably never get myself organized to accomplish it. At least I'm finally getting realistic...

Oops, I see Red has Pulmonaria listed!

Yes, I now have many wonderful ideas! Actually, now I may have too many, because I have to seriously narrow it down! My shady place isn't big enough for all these ideas! Really, I have a lot of copy, paste, Google! to do.

I'm leaning towards Lily of the Valley, Bleeding Heart, some varieties of Hostas, like Fire and Ice, maybe throwing down some already started daffodils just to see how they do, and then something low to the ground like impatiens. Because I adore lilies, I'm also very curious about the Toad Lily. I found it on Brecks' shade perennials page; anyone here have any? They are beautiful, and shade lovers to boot. I also found a beautiful yellow daisy somewhere online that says it will bloom in full shade, but I'm not sure if I could get it locally, which I'm more likely to do than order online. I'll have to ask about daisies that will tolerate shade. I also like the Helleborus with variegated colors.

Regarding my soil here, I'm surrounded by farmland. We have a pretty rich soil, and like I mentioned earlier, I have lots of rabbit manure compost that could be worked into these beds. Our soil can be slightly acidic, which is why blueberries often do well in my area. digitS' summed it up well in his post!