Monty’s advice for shady plots
Spot, don’t despair – Monty sheds light on the many beautiful plants that thrive in the shadows
If a plant can get two or three hours of light a day, then it will tolerate more shade than can be imagined
Five years ago, we dug up the orchard. Not all of it, you understand, but an ambitious chunk of it. Like all things in this garden, it started as a simple idea – making a large bed under the apple trees with lots of shrubs, especially species roses. This, in turn, evolved from a long-held desire to plant clipped box and roses in the orchard in-between the apple trees. I had seen a picture of this in a garden in Normandy – of great billowing shrubs spilling with roses and topped by the broad branches of mature apples – and loved it. But box blight has made box too risky and, anyway, our orchard is too small and the trees too close to make the idea feasible. Anyway, that is how things work in this garden – an idea leads to failure but breeds something else.
So, the Orchard Beds, as they quickly became known, changed shape and size over the following year or so. Starting as a large square, they then took over the site of the old compost heap, wrapped around Tom’s Shed and, before we knew it, had gained a pair of long flanking borders running right down to the edge of the garden. What started life as one ambitious shrub border had become a whole garden with a cultivated area not much smaller than the Jewel Garden.
But, unlike the Jewel Garden, we had to deal with shade from the apple trees, the physical presence of their roots and the way that they suck up a lot of the available moisture. Balanced against that was our very heavy soil and, while five years of mulching has lightened it a bit, it is still good old Herefordshire clay – during last winter’s floods, the final 20 feet of the two long borders spent much of the time under water.
I ordered and planted the roses first. Most of these were species such as Rosa californica ‘Plena’, R. majalis, R. ‘Dupontii’, R. corymbifera and R. × alba. These are tough, adaptable and able to handle light shade. I also ordered rambling roses to grow into the apple trees, including R. ‘Ethel’, ‘Aimée Vibert’, R. multiflora ‘Carnea’ and
R. ‘Climbing Cécile Brünner’, as well as a dozen others. One word of warning about growing ramblers into trees – be careful what you wish for. Ours are stunning and I have no regrets at all but, five years on from planting, most of the roses are bigger than the trees that support them, so need pretty radical pruning annually or the tree suffers. It makes picking apples a prickly business!
We then decided on a colour theme. We have done this with all parts of the garden, selecting a palette to work with and then choosing the plants to fulfil it, rather than opting for certain plants and working other colours around them. I think this is because Sarah and I are fundamentally designers not plants people and regard the detail of
We are designers and regard the detail of individual plants as a small part of the bigger picture
individual plants as a small part of the bigger picture, rather than creating that picture from an assembly of treasured individual plants. Both methods have their merits – there is no one way. Anyway, we wanted pinks, plums, blues and coppery oranges, with the odd touch of white to complement the apple blossom.
Know your shade
There are many kinds, intensities and forms of shade. Does it vary during the course of the day? Does it change during the seasons? Is it dry or wet? How heavy is it at its heaviest and its lightest? Is the shade at the front of the borders the same as at the back? With a pair of long borders such as the Orchard Beds, do the two sides get equal shade? How does it vary along the length?
Knowing the answers to these questions means you can plant with a depth of information to hand. Many springflowering perennials and bulbs, for example, like as much sun as they can get, but because they flower before tree leaves fully open, they have flowered and set seed before the shade from the canopy becomes more intense. Others are remarkably adaptable as long as they get a few hours of sun a day, and it does not terribly matter if this is in the morning or afternoon.
We planted brunnera, epimediums,
Euphorbia amygdaloides, foxgloves,
Iris foetidissima, Solomon’s seal, tellima, thalictrum, tiarella, wood anemones and lots of ferns in the shadiest bits – all of which either flower early or prefer shade. We created rhythm with peonies, both tree and herbaceous, planted along the sunniest side. Hybrid Perpetual and rugosa roses also provide structure in this area of light shade, while amelanchier blossoms in early April, before the apples come into leaf. Other shrubs include Cornus kousa – which seems happy, though our soil is not perhaps as acidic as it would prefer, but it has not visibly complained about that yet – and hydrangeas such as the lacecap ‘Lanarth White’ and
H. arborescens ‘Annabelle’, which prefer shade but dislike being too dry, so in a dry summer we have to remember to water them. Viburnum plicatum ‘Mariesii’ is wonderful at establishing body yet remaining open and balanced with its surrounding planting, and the white flowers of spiraea shine out of the shade.
I planted 500 of the fabulous pink and caramel tulip ‘Bruine Wimpel’ in the first
autumn, and they made a stupendous display in the spring of 2017 but have receded since then, and I’ve been unable to get more bulbs to top them up. We planted camassias for a hit of spring blue and, like the tulips, they were terrific in their first year. The balance between tulips and camassias in the light shade of blossom from the apple trees was a huge success, and we patted ourselves on the back for our brilliance. But while the tulips declined noticeably in their second year, the camassias thrived and now, four years on, they have doubled in individual plant size and quantity,
completely overshadowing the tulips. It’s another case of being careful what you wish for. Camassias, a plant of open prairie meadows, are best planted into grass rather than as part of a mixed border, because even in shade they are too dominant.
Later in the year, when the shade has deepened and the sun is higher, Dahlia ‘Rothesay Reveller’ is a star, flowering consistently for months with its big raspberry-ripple, deep-crimson and white blooms held high on extra-long stems, seemingly unaffected by being in some level of shade all day. The rambling roses are a fantastic success and I have learned that they are part of the borders rather than being an embellishment of the trees, so they should be chosen with that in mind. Foxgloves are always a delight and Digitalis purpurea ‘Apricot’ is a favourite, along with ‘Dalmatian Peach’. Nicotiana grows well, and we use both N. sylvestris and ‘Lime Green’, as well as alchemilla, hardy geraniums, lilies, penstemons and the lovely thistle Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’, which flowers first in May and again in late summer, while in the deepest, darkest shade, acanthus gives a glossy green backdrop – although it is another thug, so should be reserved for those places where little else will grow.
There are two lessons I have learned from making these large, shady borders under trees, although it is still an ongoing experiment and no doubt there will be many more lessons to come. The first is that if a plant can get two or three hours of light a day, then it will tolerate more shade than might be imagined. The second is that the shadier a border, the more important it is to enrich the soil so that it can retain moisture.
Dry shade is tricky, and I had not realised quite how much moisture the apple trees suck up. So, if you are planting under and around trees, be brave and be confident in having a wide range of beautiful plants – but be sure to mulch and mulch good... and then mulch some more.