The City Gardener: Casting light on shade gardens

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Putting shade-loving plants in the spotlight

In Toronto and Ottawa, we’re spoiled for leafy neighbourhoods; by midsummer, towering old oaks, maples and other species turn the humblest streets into grand allées.

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Big backyard shade trees are almost as ubiquitous – whether deliberately planted, or the chance offspring of the city trees out front.

 In my midtown garden, tree seedlings are actually some of my most persistent weeds. But a few years ago, a Manitoba maple took root in my backyard in the perfect spot for a tree, so I decided to let it have its way.

Manitoba maples are sprinters: in less than a decade, it had topped 40 feet, and it’s still rising. Its branches stretch over most of my 20-foot-wide yard, and a good bit of my Italian neighbour’s vegetable garden too. (Fortunately, we’re still on speaking terms.)

 As far as specimen trees go, Manitoba maples won’t win any beauty contests. But my tree’s in rude good health, keeps my garden cool on hot days, and I’ve become quite fond of it – the way you do with trees. But by necessity, I’ve become something of an expert on shade gardening.

Shade gardens are a great canvas for gardeners with an artistic bent: the variety of foliage shapes, colours, and variations in size, height and growing habit – from small and spreading to tall and spiky – give you a much broader palette to paint with than a “regular” sunny border.

And as long as you keep an eye on moisture levels (depending on your individual situation, shady areas can be either excessively wet or prone to drying out), they’re often wonderfully low-maintenance once established.

 If it’s flowers you want, some flowering shade lovers include bleeding heart; astilbe, with feathery plumes in white or pink; balloon flower (look for white ones – much more striking in a shady border than the more common blue type); and bulletproof columbine.

Most daylilies do well in shade, especially if you get a bit of dappled sunlight. For more colour, add some annuals like impatiens or begonias, both of which do fine in shade.

I’m currently revamping one of my shade borders, alongside a curving flagstone path that meanders down to a little seating area at the foot of the garden. (The entire meander only takes about ten seconds or so, but you get the picture.)

I’m not putting in any flowers, at least right now: my goal is to highlight contrasts in leaf colour, shape and type, which will become more marked as the garden matures.

 The plant list includes shield ferns, which first unfurl in bronze, then turn green; heuchera, which comes in a rainbow of leaf colours, including near-black and a red so vibrant it almost looks like it’s blooming; Japanese hakenachloa grass, with its bright-yellow blades; and the stars of the show, five hostas, each entirely different. (I may add more later.)

If you only know hostas as those boring old fuddy-duddies like Halcyon or dull-blue Royal Standard, you’d be surprised at the variety available now. What’s more, today’s hostas are tough and easy to grow, not nearly as vulnerable to slugs as they were even a few years ago.

 Just a few of my favourites include White Feather, with its gracefully tapered, near-white leaves; Captain Kirk, whose yellow leaves with dark green edges change as each individual leaf matures, so that one plant can be many different shades of green (and I also love the name); and Golden Standard, near-yellow and graceful as a swan.

Don’t get me wrong; I still love my sunny front garden. But as the temperature soars, I’ll probably be spending more time in the back, basking in the shade of my big, friendly maple tree, contemplating how beautiful a flowerbed with no flowers can be.

Please feel free to write in with questions to comment or to share your
own city gardening adventures. Write to me at marthasgarden07@gmail.com