Specialty Gardening: I could do with some help on filling in a dark corner, 1 by Pagancat

Pagancat wrote:
Mmmm....shoot. I've been meaning to get back to this thread for some time - so sorry, DH has been having a rough time of it.

Bluespiral's list is wonderful... to my experience, there's a lot of stuff in there that you might be able to grow through the winter times, and some as annuals. I'm hoping you can keep your area somewhat shady - it can give extra life to plants not quite used to high, consistent heat. But, of course, balancing out blooms with that is difficult - no sun, no fleurs, unless it's the kind of plant that likes it dark. If you are clearing the area and you have a choice, I recommend getting in as much early morning sun and later afternoon shade as you can. I've no idea if your sunlight is as strong as it was in the cloud & humidity-less skies of Phoenix, but almost *nothing* could handle full sun there.

That being said....

Here's some plants I'd look at for putting in for some color that are heat tolerant and shade tolerant, with low water use.
-Sanseveriera - aka Mother-in-law's tongue. We use them here mostly as fool proof house plants. They come in a lot of different variegations, yellow stripes, etc.
-Salvias - some of them, like S. coccinea will bloom in the shade - that particular one is bright red. You have to be careful with them, however - there's a number that like a *lot* of water, some that are more xeric. Salvia x superba 'May Night' has electric blue/purple blooms (will need *some* direct sun) and blooms almost constantly. Might need some hand watering.
-Ivy - Hedera helix is usually called English Ivy but probably has a thousand names. Comes in a small leaf or larger leaf, a number variegations, can climb or be used as a ground cover - there's some out now with orange leaves, too. But they're very atttractive, and evergreen in your climate. You might have to be careful about not letting it escape your garden.
-Ficus pumila - creeping fig - another climber, with neat small leaves on new growth. Rarely blooms, but it can. Both this and the ivy are very shade tolerant.
-Passiflora spp. - Also a vine. There's a lot of different Passion flowers, you might have to ask at a local nursery which ones do well in your area, but they are intensely frilly, some of them are fragrant and some of them provide tasty fruit. They will climb forever, so make sure you either care to cut them back or have something for them to go to the sky on!

A lot of the South African plants should do well there - I'm thinking of Aloes (typically orange blooms but some are yellow) Gladiolus (will need some sun) both the Dietes bicolor and grandiflora & Moreas - they have slender leaves that look like a grass and iris-like blooms (see the bicolor below) and do with little sun but more blooms if more sun. There's a guy here in California who has a site with a lot of different ones that you don't see often - I don't know if you can actually order from him but he's a good reference - http://www.thebulbman.com .

More soon...