What to do with a dark corner in your garden

Lots of gardens have a particularly shady area – perhaps it’s a dark corner under a tree, or a side passage leading out from the back door. While these might seem like problem areas, actually, there are lots of plants that positively thrive in shady spots. What’s more, with a bit of thought on design and a few carefully-chosen accessories, you can make even the dankest spot into a green haven – for both people and wildlife.

Fern-tastic shade planting

Asplenium scolopendrium

Polystichum setiferum Plumosum Group

Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’

If there’s one group of plants that positively adores life in the shadows, it’s ferns. With hundreds of different varieties, all with beautiful and interesting leaves, gardeners are spoilt for choice. Here are our top five ferns to grow in your garden:

1. Hart’s tongue fern – native, evergreen and tolerates dry soils, Asplenium scolopendrium is a real hard worker. You might recognise its shiny, leathery leaves from country walks.
2. Soft shield fern (Polystichum setiferum) – finely divided, evergreen leaves make a delightful contrast to bolder, shinier leaves like hostas and hart’s tongue fern. Another native plant that copes well with occasional dry spells.
3. Copper shield fern - Dryopteris erythrosora – with its bright coppery-pink new fronds in spring and summer, this fern brings an unusual dash of colour to the garden. Copes with dry shade.
4. Japanese painted fern – Athyrium niponicum – an utterly gorgeous, delicate little fern that looks quite unlike any other. It has silvery leaves (fronds) which look for all the world as though they’ve been painted down their middles with a strip of dark green-grey.
5. Polypody – grow this fern and you’ll understand how it got its English and Latin (Polypodium vulgare) names. Meaning ‘many-footed’, this charming little native fern creeps happily about on stone walls and even in the forks of old trees, making it perfect for slotting into nooks and crannies, giving your fernery or stumpery an instant air of maturity.

Athyrium niponicum ‘Silver Falls’

Polypodium vulgare

Rather than just make a bed of ferns, why not take things to the next level by making a ‘stumpery’. This is particularly useful if, for example, you’ve just removed a tree or hedge and are left with stumps. Turn a problem to your advantage and make the most of their incredible, gnarled forms.

How to make a stumpery

First, assemble your materials. You’ll need a selection of shade-loving plants such as ferns and foxgloves – be sure to get a range of shapes and sizes. Then get your stumps – these can be from trees or hedges, or pieces of driftwood or scrap wood.

Then dig over the site, incorporating lots of garden

Can refer to either home-made garden compost or seed/potting compost: • Garden compost is a soil improver made from decomposed plant waste, usually in a compost bin or heap. It is added to soil to improve its fertility, structure and water-holding capacity. Seed or potting composts are used for growing seedlings or plants in containers - a wide range of commercially produced peat-free composts are available, made from a mix of various ingredients, such as loam, composted bark, coir and sand, although you can mix your own.

Planting is next – the key to making it look natural is to stuff plants into corners, nooks and crannies. Don’t be afraid to divide plants and put small pieces into crevices, spreading and mingling as you go. Taller plants such as foxgloves can be used to add height and vertical accents, complementing the twisting, gnarled forms of the stumps.

To finish off, water everything well and apply a

Mulch is a layer of material, at least 5cm (2in) thick, applied to the soil surface in late autumn to late winter (Nov-Feb). It is used to provide frost protection, improve plant growth by adding nutrients or increasing organic matter content, reducing water loss from the soil, for decorative purposes and suppressing weeds. Examples include well-rotted garden compost and manure, chipped bark, gravel, grit and slate chippings.

Bark is the outermost layer of woody plants (trees, shrubs and woody climbers). It is several cells thick and provides protection against physical damage, disease and environmental stresses. Bark comes in a wide variety of colours and patterns, and these can help gardeners when identifying plants. The fissures and crevices of bark on older plants also creates valuable habitat for many garden creatures as well as lichens and small plants.

bark