6 Flowering Plants for Your Garden's Shady Spots (Slideshow)

By Bonnie Alter, TreeHugger

In every garden there are varying degrees of shade. There is the deep shade where serious woodland-type plants are the only thing that will grow. And then there is partial shade. Bliss: you can grow plants with flowers that will give colour and delight in those dark corners. Be careful: you do need a few hours of sunlight, but nothing like direct, full sun over the day.

Here are some of the nicest partial-shade perennials. They spread rapidly, so you may have to do some serious ripping out after a few years.

1. Bee Balm (Monarda didyma) — above

Bee balm, as the name hints, is heaven for the bees and hummingbirds. And the gardener: it comes in different shades of red and purple, it blooms in partial shade for weeks in July. If you cut it back, you may even get a second set of blooms in September. It spreads like crazy.

Photo Credit: H. Zell (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

1 of 6

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Yvette S.

8:09AM PDT on Sep 6, 2012

Beautiful,thanks for sharing

September 6
send a green star

Rosie L.

1:38PM PDT on Sep 4, 2012

beautiful thank u!

September 4
send a green star

Ernie M.

9:05AM PDT on Sep 4, 2012

Thanks saving this for spring and the front coner of my yard under the red bud trees need ground cover there so I dont have to mow.

aj E.

12:40PM PDT on Sep 3, 2012

very pretty.

September 3
send a green star

Nicole G.

9:46AM PDT on Sep 3, 2012

Lovely. Thanks!

Seda A.

1:56AM PDT on Sep 3, 2012

thank you

rene d.

1:10AM PDT on Sep 3, 2012

interesting!

Dale O.

9:09PM PDT on Sep 2, 2012

Delightful flowers, certainly intriguing to know that there is a user friendly version of purple loosestrife seen in Most Wanted Dead Posters. Its beauty is well known but sadly it is invasive, a non-native species known as the silent killer of wetlands as it strangles native plants required by local species.

Bee Balm is lovely for tea and attracting humming birds and butterflies while the Solomon's Seal is a fond memory when spending 13 years on a 100 acre oasis known as the farm with ponds, fields and forest.