Shade Garden Plants Add Color to Woodland Areas

Spring really brightens up wooded areas with lots of colors just bursting out a big “Hello!” I think that is what sparks us to want to add color to shaded areas. The artist part of us comes out wanting to splash color into our surroundings and the fun part is that it doesn’t stop with spring just as Claude Monet did at his garden in Giverny. He even planted hiswoodland areas with colorful plants. Monet's pond garden as well was carefully planned by Monet himself. Over one hundred years old and his gardens still look as beautiful today as we can imagine that they did when he first painted them.

Monet's Garden
Photographed by Cheryl D Jones

Here is a listing of plants from evergreen ground covers, to shade loving perennials, to spring flowering shrubs and spring flowering trees that will grow in shaded areas. Most will produce spring color while a few others will just add something special to the blend.

Strategically placing plants with color can give a whole new look to your woodlands or shaded areas. It's especially easy if you have a digital camera. You can take pictures of the areas you want to enhance with color or texture, print them out or just study them on the screen and you can visualize how you would like to see the woodlands as the seasons unfold.

Ground cover plants for shade:

Ajuga
Pachysandra
Vinca
Cotoneaster
(creeping) Moss

Shade loving perennials:

Ferns
Tiarella
Anemone
Aster
Astilbe
Dicentra
Helleborus
Heuchera
Hosta
Solomon's seal
Carex
Liriope

Flowering shrubs for shade:

Mountain laurels
Sambucus
Reblooming Azaleas
Rhododendrons
Bamboo
Carolina allspice
Red twig dogwood
Hydrangeas
Nandina
Holly

Flowering Trees for shade:

White flowering dogwood
Red bud
Serviceberry
Sourwood
Cedar
Hemlock
White pine
Sycamore
Green ash
Poplars

Don't try to do your entire project at one time. Working on it over several years allows you to see that you are on the right track for what you want as the outcome.

Visit Greenwood Nursery Mail Order Nursery for shade loving plants.

And don't forget about ways to move through your wooded area. Bark mulch walkways and stepping stones make great paths. Benches, whether wood, stone or metal, give excellent reasons to sit and enjoy from the inside out. Rocks of all sizes and even boulders look stately with moss growing over them and are right at home in wooded and shaded spaces.

I hope this has given you some ideas to build on to make your own woodland area as beautiful as a Monet painting.

By Cheryl D. Jones