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Gardening In Shade - Introduction

© Marge Talt

Shade:. Shade can be cool, dappled, heavy, light, dank, dry and wet. It gives relief from summer's unrelenting heat. Shade provides a home to some of the most beautiful of plants. Too much shade means you won't be able to grow most vegetables and many of the most popular flowering annuals like zinnias and marigolds.

Gardening in shade presents some challenges and provides rewards (as does every kind of gardening). I'll be sharing what I've learned over twenty odd years about the varying kinds of shade, soil preparation, plants I've known and grown, those I lust for and those I've lost, and, no doubt, there will be digressions as my fancy takes me. I'll also provide some basics, talk about propagating, pruning and maintenance and point you in the direction of sites on the web which provide resources that can help you garden more effectively.

Where in the world you garden will determine whether you seek shade or shun it.

My garden is in a heavily wooded area on the east coast of the United States, in Maryland, which is one of the Mid-Atlantic States. The USDA zone 7 summers are hot and humid and winters can vary from mild to bitter cold. Minimum winter temperatures are generally in the low teens (Fahrenheit), but can drop into the single digits or even below zero. In summer, we can have a month or more when the day time temperature remains in the 90s and nights stay in the 70s, with some days reaching over 100 F.

We can have seasons with unrelenting rain or months of drought when the sun sucks every drop of moisture from the soil and turns it into cracked concrete. Snow cover is erratic. In this climate, summer shade is essential if you want to garden without heat-stroke! I find the shady places in my garden get much more attention than the few sunny spots.

Your climate and mine may differ, but the conditions of shade and the principles of gardening in shade will remain much the same. If your summers are hot, shade can help create micro-climates where plants that would not, normally, grow in your climate, can prosper.

There are many kinds of shade and an infinite variety of plants that either require shade, prefer shade or tolerate it to some degree, including: · annuals (plants that flower, set seed and die in one season); · biennials (plants that generally flower, set seed and die in their second year);