Shade: Bloom Gardener's Guide: 2

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This handbook will tell you everything you need to know to make the most of shady garden spaces. Whether your whole garden, courtyard or balcony is cast in shade, or you simply have a window box on a shadowy sill, Shade will inspire you to transform the space with lush and interesting planting that looks good (and is beloved by wildlife) all year round. If you think a dank, high-walled urban yard means you can’t have a garden, think again. Whether your whole garden, courtyard or balcony is cast in shade, or you just have a north-facing window box,Shadewill inspire you. Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Rex’ – Giant, semi-evergreen palmate leaves jostle atop tall arching stems for ultimate big plant energy.

The thing is, there’re loads of different sorts of shade. It’s just not all the same,” says gardener and writer Susanna Grant, co-founder of Linda ( hellotherelinda.com), a shade-plant specialist and planting design consultancy.If you’re planting them in the ground, make sure they’re around 50cm away from any walls or fences, so they’re not in a rain shadow and can receive rain.

Obviously you will struggle to plant a prairie style garden in a dark corridor but there is a lot that will grow in reduced light which you might not think would work,” says Susanna. Move things around, go for different heights and textures, and don’t get discouraged if a plant fails to thrive. Grant's top three perennials to pretty up your place are begonia grandis subsp. evansiana var. alba (white hardy begonia), thalictrum delavayi 'Splendide White' (Meadow rue) and lamprocapnos spectabilis 'Alba' (white bleeding heart). I also think, if you really want something to grow, just try it – because with all gardening, you’ve just got to try it. If it dies, it dies, and you’ve just got to think, ‘OK, that didn’t work’. You just never know. If you’ve got your heart set on having loads of agapanthus in your garden and you don’t get much sun, I would give it a go and try one.” Although most climbers aren’t suited to deep shade, many like their roots shaded, as they grow towards the sun and there’re some that are definitely suitable for north-facing walls. Akebia Quinata/chocolate Vine (Aloha Bonser-Shaw/PA)

Nobottle Nursery

Grant's top three shrubs to style up your small space are chaenomeles speciosa 'Geisha Girl' (flowering quince); fatsia polycarpa 'Green Fingers' and viburnum x burkwoodii.