5 Perennials For Shade GardensLee Dobbins We all know that flowers love sunshine, but did you realize that there are perennials that love the shade You can create a beautiful garden in the shade that can act as a cooling retreat on those hot summer days. By using perennials, your flowers will come up year after year for a lifetime of enjoyment. Shade gardens offer much more than gardens that sit in the blazing sun all day. You can actually sit in them and enjoy them. Pull up a nice lounge chair or have a beautiful granite bench installed. Sit and read on a hot day, or just sip a drink and enjoy the birds and butterflies. Like any other garden the best shade gardens will have taller plants in the back against the house or woods, medium growing plants in the middle and the shorter or ground cover plants on the inner edge. Since most perennials bloom for a short time, you ‘ll want to plant them so that you always have color in the garden. Stage the planting so that each area has a blooming plant at all times of the season. Here’s a list of some perennials that thrive in the shade: Astibe - This plant comes in 3 “sizes” which grow to 20", 30" and 40" in a variety of colors. You can make a whole garden just with this 1 flower! It looks best planted in groups and has clumps of fluffy flower spikes. Foxglove - This is a great plant for the back row of the garden as it can grow to 5 feet tall. It comes in a variety of colors and has large spikes filled with bell shaped flowers. This beautiful flower is highly toxic if ingested so be careful with it around animals and small children. Lily Of The valley - This wonderfully fragrant plant has dainty white bell shaped flowers. It is great for a ground cover or the front of the garden as it grows to only about 6" tall. Lousiana Iris - This beautiful velvety purple black flower produces 4" blooms that last well into June. Plant in groups for best effect. Grows about 2 feet tall. Virginia Blue Bells - This medium sized plant has lavender bell shaped clusters. It grows to about 2 feet in height and is very hardy and easy to grow despite it’s fragile appearance.
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