Shade Garden Tips

Shade Garden Tips to Create a Beautiful Shade Garden

Shade gardening is an interesting, yet challenging hobby or occupation. The real challenge comes from a law of nature that all plants need some form of sunlight to grow.

Certain plants require full sunlight, meaning constant exposure to sun for around 8 hours a day, while many can grow with less exposure to the sun.

For some plants, full exposure to sun is not mandatory, dappled sunlight or patches of exposure at different times of day are just a good.

There are some plants that can make do with reflected light too.

This article looks at some of the shade garden tips to create your own successful garden.

Identifying Shade Areas

Your garden may be in a shady area for many reasons, it could be due to shade from your house or fence, or it could be due to shade from tall trees in the garden. You need to understand the difference between different types of shade. The shade from a house or fence is typically constant and can be classified as full shade; it does not change very much during the day as the sun moves round.

However, the shade under trees varies a lot during the day and at different times of the year. You must choose your plants carefully to make the most of this varying shade.

For the full shade garden or yard you can look at options for pot gardening and rotating your container plants to make good use of the space and yet provide your plants with sufficient sunlight.

Mulching

Soil conditions in shady areas can vary a lot during the day and even during the year. It is always best to have a controlled environment to give your plants the best growing conditions.

In this regard garden mulches are a great alternative for your garden design. Mulch has many benefits, it retains moisture content in the soil, prevents weed growth, and many shady tolerant plants are used to growing among types of mulch.

Lightening the Garden

Although you may not be able do much about controlling direct sunlight, you can control the reflected sunlight in your garden. Use light colours or even white colour for your fences to reflect sunlight.

If your garden is large enough for a stone pathway, you can use light coloured stones for reflection. If the garden is not big enough, then add some decorative stones around your flower and vegetable beds.

Decorative stones can give your garden a more natural look and at the same time help reflect light.

More Shade Garden Tips

Use of stones

If you cannot get the ideal plants for the full shade areas of your garden, try using stones instead. Large ornamental stones placed in well-chosen positions can add grace to your garden.

Try to place them in darker to more shady areas to get maximum benefit. That way your garden will not look empty and the stones can add more class to your garden design. You can also design a walk way to go through shade gardens where possible.

Rock Garden Ideas

Use of Pots and Containers

Pot gardening makes the plants mobile. This is important in shade gardening because with mobile plants, you do not have to plan your plant positions strictly by shade considerations.

You can choose to give your garden a better overall appearance by placing certain plants in areas where they typically won’t grow. If they are potted, you can keep moving them around on a regular basis to give them good growing conditions and still retain the charm of your garden.