Barry’s tips for creating a shady garden

■ Raise the canopy of the trees, and keep the hedges cut back.

■ Ferns are a must, especially male or basket fern and swordfern, which tolerate both dry soil and shade.

■ Tree ferns add drama and height and, if grown in large, plastic pots, can easily be moved indoors during winter, then brought back out in spring.

■ Hellebores, with their handsome, evergreen leaves and winter flowers, grow very well providing the soil remains moist. ■ Wood spurge may be common but, during March, its lime-green flowers brighten up a dark corner. Once over, cut the shabby flowering stems to the ground.

■ Shade-tolerant shrubs include mahonias, variegated hollies, azaleas and panicled hydrangeas.

■ In summer, few flowering plants survive the shade, apart from Japanese anemones and hydrangeas, but the kaleidoscope of greens provides a welcome break from blowsy herbaceous borders.