Many of us lament the fact that we have a lot of shade in our gardens when in fact, a shade garden can be a more wondrous area to visit than a full sun garden. In this day and age where warmth is becoming ever warmer it is wonderful to have an area where you can escape from the sun and enjoy the serenity of a quiet, shady space.

If you have an area such as this and just continue to throw mulch on it you might want to take a closer look to see if it could become a more natural part of your garden. Nature’s Friends Landscaping can help you evaluate and plan a shade garden for some calm and quiet in your landscape.

If you have a few tall hardwood trees which cast a dappled shade on the ground you are in luck as that is the desired beginning point. However, if you have a thicket of evergreens or overgrowth of small ‘weed’ trees, those can be selectively removed or some of the lower limbs can be carefully taken off to produce an area to be treasured. You can then create paths and places to sit with shrubs such as viburnum, boxwood, hydrangea, azaleas, and many other shade tolerant decorative shrubs.

For understory perennials there are an amazing number of them who will tolerate shade, some even prefer having mostly shade. These include hostas, ferns, astilbes, heucheras, foamflowers, hellebores and many, many others. There are also annuals which enjoy some cover from the sun and can be placed into the garden until it matures.

You may want to create a shade garden if you don’t have one, planting Japanese maples and dogwoods will create a small shade garden in a short period of time. Take time to enjoy your shade garden if you already have a space like this, get out there every day in the spring and watch all the new growth making its appearance.