Northern Shade Gardening

Sweet scents add another sensory layer to the garden. Two of my three favourite scented flowers are blooming in the garden right now, Convallaria majalis (lily of the valley) and Syringa (lilac). The third, Paeonia (peonies), are still in the bud stage, but will soon be adding their delicious fragrance to the garden potpourri.

The perfume from the white bells of Convallaria majalis (lily of the valley) floats over this shady bed. They are getting cozy with Matteuccia struthiopteris (ostrich fern) in this photo. Lily of the valley get cozy with a lot of plants in the garden, but I forgive them this habit when they bloom with beauty and scent in the spring.

This Syringa vulgaris ‘Wedgewood Blue’ (wedegewood blue lilac) has an intoxicating scent, and its blooms are just as beautiful to observe. The blossoms are a light lavender blue colour, but unfortunately my shrub does not produce many. It is in a part sun location, so it could be that there is just not enough light to produce a multitude of buds. I’ve had it for 5 years, so I would think it’s old enough now to produce more. This shrub is a smaller lilac, growing to about 2 metres (6 feet) when mature. Mine is about 5 feet now. It is planted near my bedroom window; the plan being that the fragrance would drift through my open bedroom window as I fall asleep. There are not enough flowers for it to carry that far yet, but they smell beautiful when I sniff them at close range. I’m still hoping that eventually the scent will drift into the house too. Lilacs are a wonderful shrub to add fragrance to your garden. I have more information and photos about Syringa vulgaris ‘Wedgewood Blue‘ in this follow up post.

In this photo of the current peony bud, a ladybug looks on the hunt for aphids. I don’t know if it had a disagreement about this with the ant directly above it. I couldn’t observe it long enough to see who would win the rights to the peony bud territory.

Paeonia lactiflora ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ (Sarah Bernhardt peony) also produces a wonderful fragrance. It is in a part sun location, but it usually has many blooms, enough that the scent carries for a distance. This perennial is also planted near my bedroom window, but the smell does not waft through my window as planned either. It is definitely worth a walk to this area of the garden a few times a day when this plant is in bloom. I have to sniff its perfume, and observe its large pink overblown petals.

The flowers are so heavy that this peony needs a ring to keep it off the ground when in full bloom. I usually place a 2 tiered ring around it when it is about 30 cm (1 foot) tall. The one piece sturdy structure takes less than a minute to insert, and the foliage grows quickly to cover the support. This picture shows one side of the peony heavy with flowers from last year. Even in the part sun/shade exposure, this plant gets about 30 blossoms.

Peonies, lilacs and lily of the valley are 3 plants that will appeal to another sense in the garden, beyond their beauty. While strolling around, looking at the foliage and flowers (or more frequently bending over to pull a few weeds), I have a series of pleasant scents to enjoy.

You can read more about the  Sarah Bernhardt peony in this later post. Here is some information about Dianthus (carnation), another plant with a beautiful fragrance.

Great foliage is important in a shade garden. Many plants that thrive in the shade tend to have no flowers or short blooming times or sparse flowering because of the low light. The flowers may come and go, but good foliage is visible for the season. The feathery plumes of the astilbes look great while they are flowering, but their lacy foliage looks great for even longer (this is probably truer in a northern climate).

Plants with leaves of different textures, habits and colours provide interest. If you are craving more colour, many of the newer Heuchera (coral bells) combine a rainbow of leaf colour. I’m partial to using a low key combination of different green shades, combined with silvers such as the perennial Brunnera macropylla ‘Jack Frost’ (Siberian bugloss). This picture from last summer also shows the Adiantum pedatum (Northern maidenhair fern) to the left, Convallaria majalis (lily of the valley) behind and Matteuccia struthiopteris (ostrich fern ) in the back corners. I like the feathery texture of the maidenhair fern next to the heart shaped silver veined leaves and the broad lily of the valley leaves with the vase shaped ostrich fern. These plants all do well under the shade of a willow tree with some dappled light.

Alternating perennials that are vase shaped, rounded, tall or sprawling adds excitement to the shade garden. Repeating these combinations around the garden ties it together. If you are looking for more foliage ideas, here is another post I wrote which has many foliage pictures.

What are your favourite perennial foliage combinations? When you go to buy a plant, which is more important to you, the leaves, the flowers, the plant form, the scent, or is it something less concrete like past memories you associate with the plant?

One of the best parts of gardening is watching your garden change over time as you move plants around, add new ones and watch them grow. I love to examine photos of other people’s gardens taken over the years or seasons and note the changes.

When I first moved into this house there were mature trees and shrubs, but the few perennials were in narrow beds lining the fence and patio. Perhaps the previous owner had planted many annuals, since the foot wide strips were sparsely planted with perennials. There tended to be larger collections of the faster spreading perennials. In the area to the west of the house, there was a small strip of dirt against the rickety fence fronted by a slightly wider patch of grass, a sidewalk and then a 20 cm (less than a foot) section of white stone against the house. There were only a few Convallaria majalis (lily of the valley) in the exposed soil. I didn’t plant much here at first since it was out of sight. As I began planting this area, I felt restricted by the narrow space and the grass constantly encroaching on it.

Although it seems obvious now, it took a while to realize I could reshape the beds in the yard into whatever shape and size I wanted. The wider they were made, the better they looked. One reason the beds initially looked unsatisfactory was that the narrow width of about 30 to 45 cm (1 to 1½ feet) meant that all of the perennials were lined up in one row along the fence. Once the planting area was widened, there was room for layers with taller plants behind. The wider beds around the yard are more in proportion to the size of the lawn. In the side garden, removing the grass made the area look more like a garden and less like a line of convicted perennials forced up against the fence.

Here are some pictures showing how the garden on the west side of my house has changed over the last 6 years.

The first picture shows how this area looked in 2002, the spring after I moved into the house. You can see how the narrow grass strip does nothing for the bed, except create extra work having to remove it as it constantly invaded the area. The boards were propping up the fence, keeping it out of the bed too.

The next photo shows how this section looked in the summer of 2006. The Convallaria majalis (lily of the valley) are filling in and the Aruncus dioicus (goat’s beard) planted in the corner the previous year is quickly growing taller. The new fence is self-supporting, but the narrow grass strip is weedy, and what’s with the white gravel next to the house?

The next photo shows how this bed looked in May of 2007. The grass has been removed and more perennials added. The Matteuccia struthiopteris (ostrich fern), Astilbe simplicifolia, Campanula posharskyana (Serbian bellflower), Osmunda regalis (royal fern) and Philadelphus lewisii (mockorange) add their lush foliage to the other fresh green leaves.

Here the plants are growing and blooming in June 2007. The A. dioicus (goat’s beard) plumes are showy in the corner shade, the P. lewisii (mockorange) is blooming and the M. struthiopteris (ostrich ferns) are taller. I like the various shades of green in this shady area.

In July, the astilbe are blooming and the rest of the foliage still looks good. One thing I don’t like is how the large wooden retaining post, sidewalk and gravel look busy here in front of the bed. It would look better if the patio blocks continued to make the sidewalk.

In August 2007, I removed the white gravel from next to the house and planted a short Campanula portenschlagiana (Dalmatian bellflower) by the house. It looks much better, but is in shadow in this shot. You can see a closeup on the my garden plants page.

Here is another post showing a garden area planted with shade plants that I changed.