Best Shade Gardening Plants

Excellent news for shade gardeners. Three fabulous new evergreen epimediums bred in Britain and opened there last year are now offered in the US for the first time – from Wayside Gardens. Believe me, they’re elegant – they really overwhelmed me when I saw them in England last spring - and they’re tough too, hardy to zone 5. The films, I’m scared, do not disclose how astonishingly productive they are. They, and more newcomers, are also available in Britain this spring from Wildside Nursery (by mail order) and Foxgrove Plants

Bred by Robin White of Blackthorn Nursery, who produced the Party Dress double hellebores, all are mixtures between evergreen species launched from China comparatively newly and selected from thousands of seedlings ensuing from cautiously controlled pollinations.

All three have been selected because they hold their flora well clear of the plant life, they have an extensive blossoming season so that if the first flowers are snowy you’ll still get an excellent show, and all three also have pleasingly colored spring leaves. They were initially produced in the early 1990s and have proved their value over a lot of years before lastly being established.

There are main beliefs behind flourishing implementation in every art form and merging plants into gorgeous arrangements is every bit as much an art as is music or painting. Complete books are devoted to the subject matter of merging plants, but a few universal principles can here be outlined which might prove helpful. 

Eclecticism is the most general indulgence of beginners, with one of these and one of those… Whereas this can make an inspiring collection of botanical specimens, it will not make a very acceptable garden. 

Some of the most fine-looking scenes in nature consist of a massing of a major plant steadily giving way to another largest plant in a natural drift, with an area in which both amalgamate. If these plants correspond and or distinguish adequately, the result is particularly outstanding. Often this will be with a consistent backdrop and or forefront of some single or methodically intermixed planting of another type which ’sets off’ the major focal plantings. 

So, defining the region, producing a constituent or unity with a meticulous look within the garden, which merge into another component in close harmony or distinctive contrast is one key to merging plants. 

This look need not be shaped with only one kind of plant and are often all the more prosperous and fascinating if several plants having strong resemblance and some differences are intermixed. A combination I personally enjoy, for example, is flecked ornamental grasses mixed with Iris and variegated Iris, with drifts of variegated liriope and an occasional daylily. All these are blade-leaved plants and together create an idiosyncratic compositional ingredient while providing distinction in detail and in blossom. 

Right in the center of this I may place a dappled Hosta, or run the blade-leaved planting into a planting of Hosta, and I may place a Hydrangea macrophylla mariesi to the stern of the planting. The variegations all harmonize, relating even the Hosta and Hydrangea to the blade-leaved plants, and the broad leaf of the Hosta and Hydrangea distinguish very well with the shrubbery of the others. 

Which brings us to the fundamental principle: Relationship? What was just explained is a planting in which all the plants concerned relate to each other through several of their distinctiveness. If you take any two vegetation you have, or pictures of them, and put them jointly you can begin to see what is meant by relationship. Do they do anything collectively? Do they intermingle, visually? Does each underline the qualities of the other or does nothing happen - there is no association that you can see? 

This is analogous in principle to merging colors efficiently except that with plants it is more multifaceted because we are working with the general form, with the consistency created by the plants, with the individual leaves, with leaf color and with flower form and color. But the thought is the same. Is there an association? Do the plants work collectively? If not, then don’t put them mutually. 

You need only the slightest grasp of botanical Latin to etch a mental picture of an Amorphophallus bulbifer flower bud. The species, bulbifer, refers to its ability to clone itself by producing bulbils, a form of perennial, underground food storage organ. It’s the genus name, Amorphophallus, that describes the flower. ‘Amorpho’ means shapeless, and you can guess the rest!
Amorphophallus is a group of warm-climate herbaceous perennial bulbs. It includes the titan arum from Sumatra, famous for producing the largest compound flower, which can grow 3.6-3.8m tall. Although it’s much smaller at 45cm, the flesh-pink, arum lily-shaped flower of the voodoo lily cannot be ignored.
Voodoo lilies come from China, India, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh. They can be grown in a garden in frost-free climates or in pots or greenhouses in cooler areas. Adapted to dry winters and wet summers, as the warmth and rains of summer return, they sprout a single flower or leaf.

Voodoo lilies are delicate plants, requiring a sheltered, shaded position and a freely draining, compost-rich soil. A potting mix prepared for African violets is perfect. Apply a seaweed tonic monthly. When growth commences, water the plants regularly, but avoid overwatering.
Leaves and flowers sprout directly from the earth, changing daily in shape, form and colour. Flowering commences at two to three years old and flowers last a week. The flowers are odourless by day, but at night the reproductive parts warm up, emitting a strong, rotting odour. For this reason some people like to grow them in pots, placing them outdoors at night. If you plant yours in the ground, avoid positioning it near a window.

Flowers successfully pollinated by flies develop red berries. When these soften, press them 1cm deep in propagating mix. Wear gloves as the fruit juice may stain or cause irritation. Grow for one year before potting plants individually. Seeds can also be sown directly into garden beds.
Staff at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, discovered that leaf wedge cuttings are an unusual propagation technique. Slice off mature leaf tips with a razor - each leaf wedge must include a section of a large vein. Dip the wound in hormone rooting preparation and insert in propagating mix. Keep warm and moist in shade somewhere sheltered. In these conditions cuttings will root in a month.
In autumn the leaves will yellow, collapse and die. Reduce watering and keep the plants almost dry until growth resumes. Each dying leaf will bear multiple bulbils, resembling greyish-brown warts. Detach and press 3cm deep in potting mix. When they sprout the following summer, water and feed. Repot as for seedlings.