My garden has mostly shady areas with a small sunny bed. After visiting a garden center over the weekend, I am finding it very difficult to decide which plants to buy. Can you please suggest specific plants to help me narrow down the choices?
— Michael Anderson, Northbrook
Garden centers are chock-full of plants now, which makes it easy to buy plants impulsively that might not be suitable for your garden. I have resorted to looking through racks of plants that were just delivered to find the exact ones I wanted for home. I can provide guidelines for you to use in selecting plants, but I hesitate to offer specific plant suggestions without knowing more about your garden. It is easy to get overwhelmed when shopping at garden
centers in the spring. There are so many beautiful plants to choose from, and you will find choices that will grow well and others that will grow poorly or die out. It is important to choose plants that are well adapted to the conditions in your garden and that will fulfill your design objectives. Focus on choosing the right plant for your particular site. These plants will perform better, have fewer pest problems and require less maintenance. This discipline will serve you well when you see a special plant that grows best in full sun, when all you have is partial to full shade. Planting sun-loving plants in a shady site usually results in plants with spindly growth and few, if any, flowers. I often see sun-loving annuals planted in part shade, which will result in poor plant performance and frustration for the gardener.
The amount of sun and the exposure in your garden should be key factors in making your plant choices. This is a good place to start to eliminate plants that are not good options. A more subtle consideration is the amount of shade there is in your garden. Is it light shade, like that under a honey locust, or deep shade, like in a heavily wooded area? The degree of shade in your garden needs to be considered when choosing plants for a shady garden. A half day of sun may not always be enough information. The west side of your house is more exposed, thus hotter than the east side. There are some hostas that perform well on the east side of a house with morning sun and afternoon shade, while the hot afternoon sun on the west side will burn the foliage. Pachysandra take on a yellowish color when planted in too much sun. The more sun, the more yellow it will be, along with some scorched-looking foliage.
Next, determine the kind of soil you have. Sandy soil drains well and dries out quickly, but the typical heavy, clay loam soils in the Chicago area do not. The type of soil and drainage in your garden should be used to help guide your plant selections. Astilbe is a common garden plant that generally prefers light shade and moist, well-drained soil. If it is planted in full sun in soils that tend to be dry, it will die out. Catmint (Nepeta), another perennial, can prosper in these same conditions. Read up on the plant’s cultural needs to match it to where it prefers to grow. Many gardeners like to push the limits to grow their favorite plants, and decide to install plants in conditions that the plants tolerate rather than conditions they prefer. Special site preparation and maintenance practices also allow one to grow plants that are more demanding or not ideally suited to your garden’s growing conditions.
Some things to consider about individual plants include their size, habit, foliage and seasonal interest, such as flowers and fall color. Evergreens provide good structure for winter. Some plants are resistant to deer browsing. Deer generally eat yews and arborvitae and leave boxwood alone. Look for disease- and pest-resistant plants. Powdery mildew is a common disease on phlox. ‘David’ is a phlox cultivar that is resistant to powdery mildew. Go to the Garden’s website to access Plant Evaluation Notes, reports on the performance of cultivars of various plant genera, such as phlox, to find the cultivars that grew best in testing at the Garden.
Understanding the growing conditions in your garden is an important first step in making good plant choices. Use this information as you research plant choices for your garden or consult experts for advice on plant selections. The better information you have about your site, the better advice you will get while shopping at a garden center. In addition to the cultural needs of plants, make sure to choose plants that are cold-hardy in this area. The USDA publishes a hardiness zone map. You may find plants for sale that are not fully hardy in this area on occasion. These plants appeal to gardeners who like to experiment and will more likely be found for sale at big box stores.
For more plant advice, contact the Plant Information Service at the Chicago Botanic Garden at plantinfo@chicagobotanic.org. Tim Johnson is senior director of horticulture at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
