
No matter where you live, there are stunning shade perennials and shade-loving bulb-grown plants perfect for your landscape. Check the climate needs of plants as you shop, and visit our Zone Finder to figure out your zone. Some shade plants, such as toad lilies, may not be cold hardy to the most northern zones, but can survive in Zone 4 or 5. Start indoors 5-8 weeks before the last frost.

Plant in spring after the last frost has passed. Make sure to select the right location to give your plants a good start. For example, most hostas can thrive in Zone 3 through Zone 8, and some can even survive the heat in Florida and other Zone 9 locales. Bee balm is a perennial, so it will be in the spot you plant it in for years to come. Shade perennials often more protection from direct sun than their sun-loving counterparts, but there are plenty of shade perennials that thrive in hot climates. Just like sunny perennials, shade perennials are a hugely varied group of plants. With a number of beautiful yet hardy shade bulbs to choose from, you can create a lovely flower garden without giving up your shade. If you have a shady yard, don't give up on flower gardening. Add several varieties of shade perennials - toad lilies, dicentra, and helleborus among the ground cover for a lovely woodland display. If you are creating a woodland garden, consider such natural woodland shade perennials such as ferns and lily of the valley, which can be allowed to naturalize to create a dense ground cover. One of the nicest things about living among the trees is that it gives you the opportunity to grow a woodland garden. This perennial for shade is simply stunning! You can find hostas with green-and-white striped leaves, with green-and-yellow striped leaves, and even with all-white leaves-some hosta varieties emerge with white foliage that gradually turns to green and cream. Most gardeners, however, grow hostas for their striking foliage. Primarily a foliage plant, most hostas do have striking trumpet-like flowers that bloom in mid-summer.
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The star of any shade garden, and one that thrives in full shade, is the hosta. Helleborus, or winter rose, tolerates full shade and produces very early spring blooms. For example, bleeding hearts, sea holly, and lily of the valley need half-sun, half-shade, but astilbe, toad lily, and Siberian bugloss can tolerate full shade, although they tend to produce more flowers if they are planted where they get dappled light. The amount of shade these perennial shade plants can tolerate varies. Not only do foliage-first plants like hosta and ferns provide a lush look in the shady sections of your landscape, flowering plants like lily of the valley, bleeding hearts, and toad lilies add woodland-worthy pops of color. But today, there are a wealth of options and colors to choose from, giving you so many possibilities for your shade garden. Many gardeners think of shade plants as foliage-only plants.


Shade Perennials & Plants FAQ What Are Shade Plants?
