Plants for shade with spring interest

Plenty of plants thrive in shade, and it’s perfectly possible to create a full and attractive border even in these sometimes challenging conditions. Spring interest provides fresh growth, textural foliage and flowers that celebrate the season

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Tiarella ‘Spring Symphony’
Tiarella ‘Spring Symphony’

Quick facts

  • Using plants that are suited and adapted to their growing conditions allows you to fill trickier spaces such as shade with plants and shrubs that thrive there together
  • Shade in gardens is usually partial, light or dappled, while deeper shade is rare
  • Using plants with different colours, textures and heights can give depth and coverage to a border

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The planting plan

James Lawrence, RHS Principal Horticultural Advisor, has designed this simple, attractive, and most importantly, sustainable border design for you to try at home with plants that are easy to grow, widely available and look good together.

This planting design provides a range of plants that, once established, will thrive and provide spring interest in partial shade, while still providing a variety of interest throughout the year. 

Plants for shade with spring interest

© James Lawrence

Choosing plants for shade with spring interest

This planting combination uses evergreens and semi-evergreens with different heights, from tall at the back to shorter to the front. Spring flowers on Viburnum, Weigela, Skimmia and Rodgersia add colour and fragrance. 

Dryopteris and Tiarella provide extra groundcover, helping to stabilise the soil and reduce soil erosion, suppress weeds and help retain surface moisture. Using an organic mulch, preferably homemade compost, while the plants establish can help to provide the same benefits.

1 - Viburnum x burkwoodii ‘Mohawk’ 
2 - Weigela ‘Eva Rathke’ 
3 - Viburnum tinus ‘Gwenllian’ 
4 - Rodgersia pinnata ‘Superba’ 
5 - Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’
6 - Skimmia japonica ‘Fragrans’ 
7 - Tiarella ‘Spring Symphony’ 
1 - Viburnum × burkwoodii ‘Mohawk’ is a semi-evergreen to deciduous shrub with glossy green leaves that are felted white beneath, with orange and red tints in autumn. Red buds open to produce fragrant white flowers. 

2 - Weigela ‘Eva Rathke’ is a deciduous shrub with green leaves on arching branches. Arrays of bright red or dark pink tubular flowers are borne in late spring and summer.

3 - Viburnum tinus ‘Gwenllian’ is a bushy evergreen shrub with dark green leaves and compact clusters of starry white flowers, opening in late winter from reddish buds and followed by oval metallic-blue berries.

4 - Rodgersia pinnata ‘Superba’ is a clump-forming herbaceous perennial with large, divided, bronze-tinged leaves and tall spikes of small, bright pink flowers.

5 - Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’ is an evergreen fern, with bronze-coloured new fronds in spring and particularly bright orange-red ripe spores on the underside of the leaves in autumn.

6 - Skimmia japonica ‘Fragrans’ is a small evergreen shrub forming a low dome, with aromatic dark green leaves and dense clusters of small, white, fragrant male flowers.

7 - Tiarella ‘Spring Symphony’ is a clump-forming perennial with deeply-lobed green leaves marked with dark purple along the midribs. Upright stems carry spires of small, starry, creamy-white flowers, opening from pale pink buds in late spring and early summer.

About plants for shade

Partial shade can be common near mature trees, garden structures such as sheds, or buildings or walls. By choosing plants that are adapted to partial shade you can keep your border looking good, growing well, and once the plants are established, this will reduce the need for additional resources such as watering and fertilisers.
 

The challenge of growing in shade

Low light levels make it harder for plants to grow and develop, unless those plants have adapted naturally to reduced light. Plants that are not adapted to shade can be paler, stunted, lacking in flower or fruit, and more prone to failure. Even plants that naturally prefer shade may need careful monitoring and watering during their first spring and summer to get them well established.
 

Why choose a sustainable planting combination?

Using the ethos of ‘right plant, right place’ to create a sustainable planting combination is great for the environment. It helps to avoid waste and the use of products and practices needed to try and help ailing plants, such as applying fertiliser. It also creates robust, long-lived planting that benefits soil health and garden biodiversity.
 

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The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.