Northern Shade Gardening

Heuchera mint frost (coral bells) spring colours

Heuchera ‘Mint Frost’ (coral bells) is a wonderful foliage plant, with lovely mint green and silver leaves in the summer, and multicoloured leaves in the spring and fall. It is hardy in zone 3 and tolerant of shade.

In the fall, the green and silver leaves turn earthy shades of orange, marmalade and peach. These leaves persist from fall, under the snow. As they are uncovered in spring, the colourful leaves are revealed, preserved in good shape.

As the weather warmed, new leaves emerged. The tiny unfolding leaves are  a bright pinkish red. In May, the plants had an amazing number of leaf colours. The old orange leaves were still evident at the edges of the plant. In the middle were mint green and silver leaves, as well as polished silver leaves with dark veins. In the centre the bright red miniature leaves appeared. The combination of so many shades on one plant is intriguing. By summer, the plants  settle down to their more sedate fresh silvery green shade, with dark green markings running along the veins.

Heuchera handle shade very well. These plants thrive in my garden in a couple  hours of direct sun a day. They also handled the less than -35 C (-31 F) temperatures of zone 3 very well. I’ve found these to be hardy, with all of the plants returning after a cold winter. They were covered in fallen leaves, which may have helped keep them so fresh. When most perennial foliage has died back in late fall, the Heuchera are still providing interest. After keeping their foliage through winter, the leaves appear extra early in the spring, providing early season interest too.

Heuchera mint frost (coral bells) April 18 colours

Here are two of the ‘Mint Frost’ plants back on April 18, when very few perennials were showing green around here. To have full sized green plants in the garden, while most perennials were still underground was a real treat.

Heuchera 'Mint Frost' colour variation 1

The above picture was taken on a rainy day in May, and shows how lovely the foliage looks as water pools up on the leaves. Heuchera is extremely attractive when wet, glossy with little ponds in the dimples. The above photo shows the combination of colours the foliage can have when there is some frost.

Heuchera 'Mint Frost' closeup of flowers

Here are the flowers of ‘Mint Frost’ in July. The tall flower stems set these flowers well above the pretty leaves. Although the wands are about a metre or more (3 to 4 feet) tall, they do not get very large around. The flower stems are almost all straight, despite the curve in the picture. The spikes of dark rose pink flowers are very slender, and look like buds that never open. I think the flowers look best in front of greenery, like the ostrich fern behind. I wouldn’t get the plants for the flowers alone, but neither would I cut the flower stalks off. This Heuchera plant is mostly for the foliage.

Heuchera 'Mint Frost' with flower stalks

Here is part of a group of Heuchera ‘Mint Frost’ in front of some Matteuccia struthiopteris (ostrich ferns). You can see the leaves are definitely minty green with a dark green pattern in July, and you can see how narrow the flower stalks are.

Heuchera 'Mint Frost' (coral bells) late summer colours

Heuchera ‘Mint Frost’ is a very hardy shade perennial. Its silver and apple green colours coordinate well with many other shade plants in the garden, and look nice next to blue flowers. The colour changes in fall and spring make it an even more interesting plant. There is such a multitude of colour variations now in Heuchera. Here some information about Heuchera ‘Plum Pudding’, with purple foliage. Do you have a favourite coral bell, and have you found them hardy?

new front shade garden dappled light

Here is a new garden bed I’ve started  planting between some conifers. The area is very shady, so I chose some shade tolerant perennials, and included some plants with cream and silver foliage to lighten the area.

This bed gets less than an hour of light in the morning and an hour or so in the late afternoon. Then it gets the dappled light you see here off and on during the day. I picked perennials that thrive in shade like this.

I started by removing only the bottom branches that had no needles on them anymore from the conifers. This made a little room at the base, between the pine and the spruce. The front of the spruce gets more light, and still has branches to the ground, which I’ve left.

I then scraped the remaining grass off of this area, which was sparse anyways. I haven’t tried to maintain grass here for a couple of years, so the grass roots were shallow and easy to remove. Next I mixed in some organic material. There was plenty already here, since old deciduous leaves had accumulated under the bottom spruce branches, and were already breaking down. Also under the pine was a layer of very light, springy material. I think it is a mixture of old needles and perhaps long dead grass. There were lots of interesting textures, like a forest floor.

Under the pine there was a little midden (pile) of cone scales. They were left by a squirrel that used to like to sit on a pine branch and methodically work its way through each cone to get the seeds within. The scales fall to the ground and gradually make a little pile. They will make a nice mulch for the end section. They remind me of cocoa shell mulch.

new front shade garden hosta and ghost fern

In the centre at the back of the garden I planted Hosta ‘Francee’, which has a narrow cream margin on each leaf. The shading is reminiscent of the dappled effect of forest light on foliage. I’ve given it a little room, since it will expand.

new front shade garden looking through

On the left side I’ve included some Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ (Siberian bugloss) in the garden. These do very well in shade. These will have blue flowers in the spring, and the lovely patterned leaves for the rest of the season. This area on the left gets a bit more late afternoon sun, so the Brunnera  should grow big here, maybe 60 cm (2 feet) around. In deeper shade these plants grow about 30 cm (1 foot) around.

new front shade garden side view

The Athyrium x ‘Ghost’ fern in the centre will add finely cut, lacy fronds, and a silver lightness to the centre of this shady garden area. They make a nice contrasting texture to the solid leaves of Hosta and Brunnera. They might need some extra water here, but I’ll see how they do.

The group of Epimedium ‘Lilafee’ (barrenwort) with the light green leaves on the right should do well here since this is a drier shade area. Their leaves have a nice contrasting shape to the other plants, and they will have pretty purple flowers above the foliage in the spring. They didn’t have the required cream or silver coloured leaves, but they do well in dry shade, which is even better. The light green coloured leaves match the Hosta at the back. This plant is rated for a warmer zone than 3, but the one I had survived a cold winter last year, so I’m planting more of this perennial. We’ll see next spring how they did on a larger scale.

before picture under conifers

Here is a before photo of the garden bed. You can see that there is just a few grass remnants, some tree roots, fallen needles and cone scales. On the other hand, there is little grass to remove and lots of decaying organic matter for humus. The tricky part in planting is to avoid the large tree roots when digging. I planted in pockets in between the roots, which meant the plant spacing is where the tree allows.

new front garden in shade

This photo was taken on the day I planted the area, Saturday. I haven’t finished planting the garden bed yet, but I already like this area in the middle. There is a section on each end still to go, but I haven’t made up my mind for sure. I might plant some dwarf goatsbeard to the left, maybe some Heuchera too, both do well in shade. I also might expand at the back and plant some solomon’s seal, perhaps the variegated ones. The garden section to the right is the shadiest and driest, and has overhead branches at less than a metre (about 2.5  to 3 feet), so I’d like to plant some more Epimedium, but I couldn’t find any more ‘Lilafee’, which has large purple flowers held well above the leaves. I might look for a white flowered Epimedium, to go with the blue and purple flower scheme.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this garden looks next year as the plants fill in to the space. I’ve tried not to squeeze plants too tight, as is tempting to do when you see lots of empty space in the bed, but I didn’t use my ruler either.

This garden bed is not only shady, but it’s under evergreens, so it doesn’t get the spring light that so many woodland plants like. There is lots of room to expand among the conifers, so I’ll be extending the garden this year and next on the same theme. It’s easy to do in manageable sections, in the gaps around the trees. Any particular shade loving plants you think would work on the same theme?

Here are some of the additional plantings for this shade bed, in this followup post.

Aruncus dioicus (goatsbeard) flowers

Goatsbeard makes a great hardy perennial for the shade garden. I grow the tall Aruncus dioicus (goatsbeard) and the short Aruncus aethusifolius (dwarf Korean goatsbeard) in my garden. Other than having similarly shaped cream coloured flower plumes, the plants are very different looking.

Aruncus Aethusifolius (dwarf goatsbeard) red stems

The tiny Aruncus aethusifolius grows about 30 cm (a foot) around. The attractive foliage is very finely cut, like a fern. This plant has a very neat mounding shape. These dwarf goatsbeard get small cream coloured plumes over top of the lacy foliage, which makes for an appealing package for the front of the garden bed.

Aruncus Aethusifolius (dwarf goatsbeard) leaves closeup

These plants are new this year, but I used to grow this plant a few years ago. Through unfortunate timing, I moved the plants in summer, and then went away on vacation for a month. That’s a good recipe for unhappy plants, and the old plants never recovered. The little blue flower is from a Brunnera.

Aruncus Aethusifolius (dwarf goatsbeard) and Brunnera

Here is an Aruncus aethusifolius in front of a Brunnera macrophylla. The more delicate foliage of the dwarf goatsbeard looks great with the large, heart-shaped Brunnera leaves, and both do fine in the shade garden.

Aruncus dioicus (goatsbeard) flower spikes

Aruncus dioicus, the tall goatsbeard, makes a great plant for the back of the shady border, or a corner. Mine are about 2 metres (6 feet) tall and about 1.5 m (5 feet across). The tall flower plumes are the most striking feature of these plants. These light colours especially catch the eye in the shade of the garden. Although the flowers only last for 3 weeks or so, they make a good spectacle when they are blooming. For the rest of the season, the goatsbeard works as a green backdrop to other plants in the garden. The foliage is much coarser than the dwarf goatsbeard. The bottom leaves cover the ground well, and I don’t get any weeds trying to grow through them.

Aruncus dioicus (goatsbeard) new red spring shoots

In spring, the new shoots of goatsbeard are particularly attractive as they emerge with bright red stems. It doesn’t take long for these to grow to their full height.

Aruncus dioicus (goatsbeard) fluffy plumes

The plumes on this A. dioicus are fluffier than my other one. Since the goatsbeards have separate male and female plants (dioecious), I think these are the male flowers. These extra fluffy flowers are very similar to the astilbes which will soon be flowering.

The above plant is the Aruncus dioicus that I accidentally turned into a bonsai. Neither tall, nor dwarf, it occupies a middle layer in the garden. This poor plant originally had a deep shade location, but it never grew more than 45 cm (1.5 feet), so I moved it to a medium shade area. Goatsbeard are not keen on being moved, and it sulked for the last 3 summers, not growing over 60 cm (2 feet). Although there are crosses that are midway in height, this one is a result of nurture, not nature. I think the combination of neglected childhood plus move has stunted this plant. This year at last, it has flowers for the first time. I wouldn’t advise moving a dioicus goatsbeard, since they don’t appreciate it, and if the roots are already established, you won’t either.

Aruncus dioicus (goatsbeard) off white plume

Here is a flowers spike of a tall goatsbeard at my garden gate, with a white flowering mockorange shrub further down the walkway behind. This garden area gets a couple hours of direct sun. Which seems to be enough for the Aruncus.This photo makes me laugh, since behind the mockorange, the garden seems to disappear into a black hole. It’s not really that dark back there, just a little shady.  :)

Both of these goatsbeards make great garden plants, and do well in medium shade. I appreciate the tall Aruncus dioicus for its dramatic flower sparklers, which tower at head height. I particularly like the dwarf Aruncus aethusifolius for its neat shape, beautiful leaves, and miniature flower wands.

More photos and information about goatsbeard perennials can be found in this post.