HAPPY HOME
GARDEN EXPERT SARAH RAVEN TALKS US THROUGH WHAT TO PLANT IN AREAS THAT LACK DIRECT SUNLIGHT
FEATURE SARAH RAVEN
Without much sunlight, we are all a bit more restricted in what we can grow but sometimes that can be a good thing, THE narrowing the choices down a little.
When I’m planning a border, I try to think in layers. What’s going to give us a silhouette against the sky? What will clad the walls or fence and what will fill the borders permanently just below? Then I think of temporary highlights — annuals, biennials and bulbs which scatter the area with flowers. And another layer down, the ground cover, plants linking everything together, forming a low carpet.
This is how I design any garden space, but in shade we need to be cleverer with shapes and forms, rather than colours. To get dark spaces glowing and brighter than they truly are, white or eau-de-nil, soft pale green are your best flower colours, alongside strong leaf shapes. Here, based on 30 years of gardening, are my shadetolerant favourites.
THE TOP LAYER
Amelanchier My current number one for the top layer is a compact Amelanchier or Snowy Mespilus, which we have planted against a north-facing wall here, where it gets sun only for a few hours a day – and it’s thriving.
THE MIDDLE LAYER
Hydrangeas Ballooning up from ground level there can be no better family for a shade border than hydrangeas. We have the huge-headed Hydrangea ‘Incrediball’ with H. ‘Limelight’ planted outside our kitchen window and I’m often fooled into thinking someone is coming to the door.
Acanthus If I only had room for one shade-loving perennial, Acanthus ‘Rue Ledan’ would be my choice. It dies down briefly in winter but emerges with great gusto in early spring. In May, huge flower spikes, like jagged edged spears, erupt up to nearly my height covered with ivory napkin flowers all summer.
FLOWERY DIVAS
Annuals and biennials In shade, there’s a limit to what will grow well. In autumn, we plant as many white and soft-pink foxgloves as we can fit, letting them settle in over the winter (they’re totally hardy) before the demands of flowering. Once the frosts are over, we add Nicotiana sylvestris and Nicotiana alata ‘Grandiflora’, which are happy in shade.
BULBS
For spring, we stick with pale colours – you can have the lightest scattering of anothe
