a2z, thank you for asking this question. I'm having a hard time growing anything under my red maple tree, of course. Can't wait to see the replies.
Pat

Are you talking a Japanese red maple? Because that's actually where this garden is going! Although it will be basically past the drip line. Immediately around the tree, pachysandra is growing.

(I have given up trying to grow anything under the Norway and silver maples I have in the back. If I could afford to cut them down I would.)

This was my favorite shade garden combo this year...

{{gwi:214600}}"Jack Frost" Brunnera (at bottom) and a Japanese Painted Fern (at top)

EM, that's very pretty. Japanese painted fern is a real beauty and one of my "Must Haves" for a shade garden.

Here's some detail shots of what I call my 'alley' bed. Plants visible in these photos: Heuchera 'Amethyst Myst', Japanese painted fern, and Astilbe 'Rheinland'. Plants are in their 2nd year.

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My entire backyard is a shade garden under a mature green ash, a maturing red oak and middle-aged white pines. Woodland shade gardening is my favorite kind (hence the origin of the woodyoak name...:- ) The link below is to some pictures of our shady backyard. One of the things we did in 2008 that we really like is to turn the remaining lawn into a somewhat formal rectangle surrounded by a path; there are lots of paths through the woodland areas and they all connect to the lawn perimeter path. The 'wild' parts of the garden are set off nicely by the 'formal' lawn.

The 'formal lawn:
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A woodland path in late May:
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Here is a link that might be useful: backyard

Flattie - I LOVE your alley bed. You've done an awesome job there!

woodyoak
Nice slide show . You should consider adding plant names.

woodyoak, can't begin to find the words to express my enjoyment of walking your breath-taking paths!

woodyoak, ditto to phyl345! Wonderful of you to share.

Looks great y'all. Love it!

I just started shade gardening this year and have fallen in love with ferns. Specifically, Japanese Painted Fern, Autumn Fern, Lady in Red, Wood Fern, and Ghost Fern. They are all going in different areas next to my patio and alongside a shady walkway.

Also for the shady areas I have three types of heuchera and something that I can't wait to see in action - Hellebores. I have one named 'Carousel' and another mixture of oriental hellebores. Both from Bluestone Perennials. The heuchera and hellebores are going alongside my patio with ghost ferns mixed here and there.

flattie - I agree with others - that's a very nice bed!

cynandjon - my picture albums are largely to track what is doing what when - that is why dates are more common on the labels than names:-) If there's anything you'd like identified, I can do that....

greenfreak - you've named some of my favorite plants - especially Autumn fern and Ghost fern. I actually prefer Ghost to the painted ferns, although I have a variety of those too. Solomon's Seal is another big favorite in my shade garden, as is white corydalis, blue hostas of various sizes, columbines.... heck, I love most shade plants! :- )

Echinaceamaniac and Woodyoak: Thanks. :-) I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I need to post the before and after pictures of that bed on Karin1's Narrow Bed thread in the Landscaping Design forum at some point. Had mucho weirdness to contend with on that project and the discussion is better suited to that thread.

Woodyoak, I love your mulch paths. Very in keeping with the whole woodland feel. How much maintenance do they require? I'm asking because the trend in my area is towards pavers, pavers everywhere and I'd love it if more people would expand their options.

flattie - I don't like paver paths for a variety of reasons. The paths are a mix of about 1/3 concrete sand and 2/3 pinebark mulch. That packs down nicely but looks natural in the woodland garden setting. The pinebark mulch is a fine mulch, not the large nugget type. It does breakdown with time so about every 3 years or so I need to top up a path with pinebark mulch (the paths were made at different times so I just need to do a few parts each year.) If the dogs have been racing around the paths leaving skid marks, the paths do need raking flat again. Since the yard is sloped away from the house and the mulch is light and will move in heavy water flow, we do usually need to rake the paths after spring run-off and occasionally after heavy rains but for the most part the paths are care-free and easy.

Flattie, I LOVE the heuchera and the fern together - they look great. I a bit worried though because I just put Amethyst Mist in a bed for it's purple foliage - and yours is looking kinda green. Do you find this green coloring normal/usual?

Nice pics, woodyoak! Thanks for sharing your garden.

:)
Dee

Various hellebores - Corsican, Lenten, and Foetida

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I always like to add lilies to my narrow part shade east garden for a pop of color.

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Whirlwind Hosta, variegated lilyturf, golden creeping Jenny, and Primula x bulleesiana

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Limbed up crabapple, various hostas, and regal lilies not yet in bloom.

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A bit of statuary makes a focus point with hostas. Fried Bananas in front and Regal Splendour in back.

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Epimedium x versicolor Sulphureum, Northern maidenhair ferns, lamium, trilliums, unknown blue hosta, etc.

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Sometimes it's the shade itself that matters - Coleus on the patio,

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Here is a pic of a combo I am most happy with. The yellow bleeding heart is in full shade and never dies back on me in the summer. Gotta love that.
The plants are dicentra 'goldheart'(bleeding heart), Ligularia 'britt-marie crawford' and polemonium 'stairway to heaven'.
My husband tells me I should just plant the pot and all cuz I move things so much. It is all trial and error....especially when you mix in the unexpected herbivores changing appetite!!
Good luck and have fun!!!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:250315}}

Thanks Woodyoak. That's a very reasonable maintenance schedule. Some occasional raking is a fact of life in gardening.

Hi Diggerdee. This is my first time growing Amethyst Myst, but yes, they did tend to go a bit green last year as well. For me they're reliably purple in the spring, then the older foliage goes greenish and new growth is purple.

Since this bed was planned with foliage texture in mind as much as color it's not as much of a concern for me as it would be if I had designed with color as the primary element.

Thanks, Flattie, for that info on the Amethyst Mist. So far so good for mine. I'll have to keep an eye on them and see how they do and then make a decision.

Beautiful photos everyone. Thanks!
:)
Dee

when designing in shade pay attention to foliage, shapes and colors. Forget the flowers.

Flatie, I love your alley planting. Goes to show that it isn't the amount of space, it's what you do with it.

Woodyoak, your gardens are breath taking. Thank you so much for allowing me to "walk" around your plantings. I would love to ask questions about all of them, but let;s start with the last one on this page. On the last side, I see blur lowers, yellow flowers, spiky while flowers and something that seems orange. What are each of those plants?

Flora, I know what you mean about moving things! Your bleeding heart look so lush. Does your ligularia require a lot of water? I am rather lazy about that.

Leslie, your grouping are just perfectly put together. You have an amazing eye for grouping plants. It's like looking at a magazine. How long did it take you to do all this? How big an area is it? And do you find the creeping jenny invasive? I've heard different things and I'm rather leery of it as a result.

a2zmom,
The ligularia, because it gets almost exclusive shade and I have a mulch it doesn't need extra water....I also have a small start of the same ligularia in full sun....is in an artificial bog bed that I created by my pond, so far no wilting.
F

a2zmom - I'm glad you enjoyed the 'walk' :-) The hazy yellow in that picture is the flowers on a Kerria japonica 'variegata' shrub. The orange behind it is a tulip that popped up thanks to a squirrel raiding a neighbour's garden and depositing his booty in my garden! I have no idea what its name is but I like it there so leave it alone! It's been coming back for about 5 years now... The blue stuff is grape hyacinths. The spiky white stuff is a running foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia) - it's not a named variety but seems to have unusually pale green foliage. The other white stuff is some white corydalis (Corydalis ochroleuca) that has seeded itself in from elsewhere in the garden - it's a prolific seeder but is very pretty and blooms from early spring to late fall so I let it seed around a lot. It's fairly easy to remove and doesn't smother other things. I much prefer it to the common yellow corydalis.

a2zmom,

Thank you very much for your kind words. Just remember that the advantage of photos is that you only see the combos that work. The failures hardly ever get photographed and even less often posted. :) The weedy or overgrown areas never get posted.

My garden is actually very small and was started on a completely blank slate about 15 years ago, not even any topsoil, just heavily compacted grey clay streaked blue. As the garden ages it is becoming more shaded. I have a great deal of overlapping of sun and shade plant areas.

The main shade garden which I call my woodland garden is under a Coralburst crabapple tree, the one you see in the last photo by the patio. You can see about a quarter of it in the second to last photo. In addition to the plants you see in the picture there are trilliums, european ginger, shooting stars, toad lilies, dwarf goatsbeard, foamflower, mayapples, tradescantia, a half dozen large hostas, etc. The grouping of hellebores is tucked into a little side area of this bed near the chimney.

The Coralburst is a very dense tree, so the shade here is heavy, except on the front south fascing edge which is edged by Siloam Doodlebug daylilies and a few other sunlovers.

The bed is underplanted with hundreds and hundreds of minor bulbs, scilla, ipheion, miniature daffodils, anemone blanda, fritillaria meleagris, chionodoxa, and iris reticulata (the earliest of these), and small alliums and a few lilies on the edge for summertime color.

The limbed up crabapple with all the hostas is under a south facing window and consists of pretty much what you see in the fourth picture. The shade here is more dappled and it is partly sunny on either side of the hostas. I have a yellow and purple general perennial bed on the left side and a red, white and pink bed on the right.

My last shady area is a narrow bed about 2 feet wide which runs along the east side of my house and is bordered by a sidewalk. The Whirlwind hosta is planted in this bed, along with Cinnamon ferns, Astilbe Glut, a large clump of Variegated Solomon's Seal, lungwort, brunnera, purple heucheras, bergenia, lamiums, ajuga, various Asiatic lilies for early blooms, with Black Beauty lilies for the late season, and two large areas of ditch daylilies along a jut-out in the wall.

The Golden Creeping Jenny is not invasive in my garden. I have it in two areas. It spreads moderately well, but has never gotten out of control. In the east side part shade garden with Whirlwind hosta it spreads a bit to either side but lamium White Nancy holds it own on one side and the sidewalk is on the other.

In the second area, I have Jenny planted right on the edge of the patio as part of a garden I created to make an entrance/exit to the patio. It is planted around a couple of patio stones in the grass. It has moved somewhat into the nearby daylily bed on one side, but does not seem able to move into the grass at all. This area is in full sun and is fairly dry because it is at the top of my hill. What it would do in my "wet" garden along the drainage swale at the bottom of the hill, I don't know.

Leslie, I totally admire your yard - the photos are just amazing! Everything is so fresh and well put together. You have such an eye for colors, textures and shapes. Love it!

I have a shade garden with Endless Summer hydrangeas, Bleeding Hearts (the golden and the regular ones), astilbes, heucheras, hostas, toad lilies and Tradescantia Blue & Gold. This combination has worked very well for me.

Leslie, thank you so much for your wonderful response.

I would love to see a photo of your spring bulbs in bloom. It's be quite a sight.

You said your bed is underplanted with these bulbs. Do you plant your perennials right on top of them? How do you work that all out? Planting bulbs and perennials together is something I'm very interested in.

I am so impressed at where you started (it sounds awful, truthfully) and where you are now. I'd love to see even more pictures; I'm a greedy girl!

You have inspired me! And my new garden too is a mix of sun and shade depending on where along the length of the bed you are.

Re: Bulbs in perennial beds "How do you work that all out?"

Answer: Haphazardly! LOL

Truthfully, the answer is it sort of depends. In the following picture I tore out the grass, put in a edge, added soil and amendements, etc. in the fall. Then planted the crocus. The next spring I added the tree then some groundcovers around it and eventually some larger perennials. I planted the small bulbs mainly because I couldn't wait!! All that fresh soil called to me.

The picture is from some years later. Sorry, but I don't clean out the beds (what little I do) until quite a bit later in the season. The tall bent stick stuff is Gaura Whirling Butterflies which blooms until snowfall.

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I use mostly small bulbs, the ones listed in catalogs as minor bulbs. Most of these only get planted 4-6 inches deep and they are cheap and easy to plant. I mostly buy from John Scheepers or its sister company Van Engelen (for bulk orders). I also use Brent & Becky's for their variety and quality. These bulbs will bloom without fail in shady gardens, if the shade is from deciduous trees, because they can get all the light they need before the trees leaf out.

Most of my bulbs were planted after the perennials were planted a season or two. I add some bulbs just about every year. Usually these tiny bulbs can be added by sticking a trowel in the soil and rocking it back and forth, then dropping in the bulb. With soft loose soil you can punch a hole with you your fingers or the end of the trowel. I plant outward around 6 inches to a foot from the crown of the plant, depending on the plant. I do NOT worry about digging into them when planting other things. They seldom get sliced because they are small. I just stick them back into the ground somewhere nearby or toss them if I have too many.

Here are some more pictures. These white Anemone blandas have lovely foliage. They grow and spread easily. I also have a nice purple variety in another bed. As the foliage is going over they get completely covered up later in the season by the leaves of some large hostas.

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These Iris reticulata (I have 3 or 4 varieties - these don't often last more than a season or two or three) are planted around the crowns of the Siloam Doodlebugs and Stoke's Asters near the edge of the bed and right in the middle of the ferny (but slow rising) Moonbeam coreopsis there.
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As are these

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Same view in summer. Hostas are behind in shade.

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Fritillaria meleagris and Ipheion (sorry the pale blue washed out in the bright spring light. (The frit foliage gets kind of tall after blooming as is kind of messy for awhile, but I love the blooms and just put up with it.)

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Chionodoxa in the shade garden. Scilla in the background. Same bed on the other side of the tree.

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A little wider view. Sorry, these are washed out too, which is why I don't often post pictures of these, just can't get a decent picture of them. It's really very cheerful and I don't worry about mixing colors much since it is such a joy to see them in bloom after a harsh winter. I also have 3 or 4 kinds of species tulips in these beds, but have not had as much luck getting them to naturalize for me. Probably because they bloom later after the perennials are up and growing.

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Same view with the hostas leafed out. You can see bits of the bulb foliage here and there. Stuff on the hostas is from the blooms of the crab apple tree.

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Opposite side under the 2nd smaller Coralburst crab apple tree. Mostly Hyacinths (about 3 dozen) in this bed, with a small number of tulips. You can also see Dragon's blood Sedum, Catmint (early stages) and the grassy stuff is actually after-bloom crocus foliage. BTW the yellow daylily with reddish eye, Rumble Seat Romance, and the JK monarda in the earlier pictures are planted behind the wine colored hyacinths.

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Another method - this bed has mostly daylilies starts and echinaceas in the summer. The bulbs are overplanted with portulaca in the summer. The edges are planted with early spring bloomers. The foliage of the candytuft and basket of gold is sheared after bloom and stays nice the rest of the season.

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Alliums make wonderful bulbs to use in mixed perennial beds, especially with daylilies which hide their ratty foliage. These are Globemasters. There are also 4 other varieties (all blooming at different times) in this bed.

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As the alliums go over to seedheads (notice they get more pinkish then bronzy) the perennial glads (G. communis ssp. Byzantinus) start followed by (sometimes at the same time) the LA Hybrid soft creamy pink/yellow lilies.

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