Shade Gardening: Fall color in the shade garden?, 1 by jkom51

jkom51 wrote:
Yes, I do have to thin some of those plants periodically - the curse of living in mild-winter zones like ours, LOL!

Interestingly enough, I find I love my shade beds more than the sunny ones - something about the mix of shapes, colors and textures that is endlessly fascinating. But my (few) roses need sunshine to bloom, so I guess it's good that our property is just about half sun and half shade.

Love the shots of hydrangeas because I adore them. Late last year I finally got a couple of 'Endless Summer' plants. I've found they actually need more sun than the standard H. macrophylla. I'd love to get a 'Limelight' hydrangea and am currently considering rearranging four different beds - that 'domino' effect, I'm afraid - to have the room to put one in.

BTW, an excellent fern - and cheap, you can sometimes find it at Home Depot - is Microlepia. It's one of the few ferns that does very well in dry shade. In fact, with water it gets absolutely enormous and leans all over its neighbors. This shot was taken when the fern was 2 yrs old, growing from a 1-gallon container. It is now three times that width and twice as tall - way bigger than the label said it would be. I have several others in drier places, and they are much more manageable in size. It is a beautiful fern, altho unfortunately it is not a good cutting fern.