Plants

The plants on this page are not meant to be a comprehensive list, but rather some of the plants that I have found to be especially successful and useful over the years. You may notice that some of these recommendations differ from what you'll read in books or on nursery labels. Most plant labels are written to cover a huge range of climates and growing conditions so the same plant can be sold from Connecticut to North Carolina to Oregon. They have to be simple and broadly applicable. Real gardens aren't. Shade isn't just shade, and sun isn't just sun. Mature trees, reflected light, soil, moisture, and countless other factors create conditions that don't fit neatly into a label. These recommendations are based on decades of growing, experimenting, succeeding, and occasionally failing in real gardens—not simply on what the label says.

All of these plants are deer resistant and appropriate to the shaded sloped area of your garden.

Evergreen structure

• Skimmia japonica

• Pieris

• Cryptomeria 'Globosa Nana'

• Hellebores

Groundcovers and drifts

• Epimedium

• Geranium 'Rozanne'

• Heuchera

• Lady's Mantle

• Solomon's Seal

Bold foliage

• Ferns

• Solomon's Seal

• Sedum (my favorite "rule breaker")

• Iris x. ‘blessed again’

Flowers that really perform

• Spigelia

• Chelone

• Crocosmia

• Hellebores

Spring bulbs

• Camassia

• Rock Garden Iris

• Narcissus

• Muscari

• Scilla

• Alliums

TMI

• Solomon’s seal (sp)

• Heuchera

• Hellebore - they are all great. They vary in size a LOT. They love shade, have beautiful flowers that last a very long time, evergreen-ish leaves

• Ferns include jpf

• Epimedium

• Chelone

• Spigelia - I love it

• Crocosmia - likes more sun, but it’s structure and form make it worth trying

• Columbine - it’s a great plant, but I hesitate to recommend it because it often lacks the will to live

• Iris ‘blessed again’ - Iris 'Blessed Again' – One of the few bearded irises that has consistently performed well for me in deciduous shade. While most references recommend full sun, it makes much of its growth before the trees leaf out and continues to look good throughout the season. The flowers are a soft, pale yellow with a wonderful fragrance, and because it is an intermediate bearded iris, it stays compact and never seems to need staking. It is also reblooming, often producing a second flush of flowers later in the season. Even after flowering, the upright, silvery blue-green foliage remains attractive, providing a beautiful textural contrast to the broader leaves of many shade perennials.

• Brunella - pretty leaves. best as a specimen because it doesn’t mass well

• Lady’s Mantel - some people like the flowers. they are fine, but I love the leaves. They are a brighter green but the hairs make them more matte. Very cool water droplets

• Geranium - go for Roseanne - great color and tough as nails. very easy to get

• Skimmia japonica - I love it. shade tolerant, fills in very well, pretty winter flowers, evergreen, short, mounding and spreading, responds very well to cutting back

• Pieris - very dear resistant (toxic), incredibly durable, shade tolerant, easy to cut back

• Cryptomeria - very tough, tolerates a wide variety of conditions, ‘nana’ keeps its shape well - it doesn’t need much pruning to stay rounded.

• Spring bulbs

  • Allium - earlier and more delicate varieties

  • Siculum  bulgaricum

  • atropurpureum

  • Narcisus

  • ice follies - early

  • Jonquilla - sun disc

  • Camassia cusickii

  • Rock Garden Iris

  • Muscari armeniacum

  • Scilla siberica Spring Beauty