While shade may feel like a limiting factor when it comes to colorful garden plants, it simply isn’t. Yes, your plant palette may not be quite as full as it is in a sunny garden, but there are scores of excellent shade-loving perennial flowers that produce bright blooms all season long. Shade gardeners are often told they need to focus on variegated or colorful foliage plants if they really want to have a lot of color in their gardens. But, while having various textures and hues of foliage can certainly add a lot of pizzazz to a shady garden, foliage plants aren’t the only option. Case in point: the 15 blooming shade perennials featured below.
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Vegepods: Easy raised bed gardens where anyone can grow edibles
Whether you’re growing food, flowers, or (like me!) a mixture of both, Vegepods are an easy and low maintenance way to garden. I’ve been gardening in a Vegepod for over a year and it’s become my miniature food factory, conveniently located just outside my kitchen door. Self-watering, raised bed planters like Vegepods allow you to grow a lot of food in a small space, weed-free, and with minimal pest or disease damage. To share more of the benefits of gardening in a raised bed planter, we’ve teamed up with Lee Valley, a go-to store for American and Canadian gardeners.
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How to grow SunPatiens, a hybrid variety of impatiens resistant to downy mildew
For many home gardeners and landscape professionals, common garden impatiens (Impatiens walleriana) used to be a go-to pick at the garden center. They were an easy choice for shade gardens, as the plants filled in nicely over the season. They worked both in colorful borders or as groundcover in large swaths of a garden. That is, until impatiens downy mildew made an appearance, decimated the plant in gardens across North America, and almost eliminated the plant from retail shelves. However there are attractive replacements that will thrive in your garden. We’ve teamed up with SunPatiens, a bloom-filled hybrid impatiens that we feel really fills the void. Not only is it resistant to impatiens downy mildew, it has other great attributes that are likely to appear on a gardener’s checklist.
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20+ plant nursery and garden center tips
I LOVE this time of year. There are waves of spring flowers blooming, blossoms and leaves appearing on trees (seemingly when you blink), and plant retailers are gearing up for new and seasoned green thumbs to appear with their shopping lists and questions. I enjoy visiting all the local plant sales, garden centers, and plant nurseries in my area. They all offer something different—different varieties, different prices, different ideas, different container combos, different merchandise I didn’t know I needed. Heading out with intentions to fill a blank slate garden, or even a small area of an established one, can be overwhelming. So I thought I’d compile a few plant nursery and garden center tips I’ve gathered over the years that help me when I’m making one of my multiple trips.
Panicle hydrangeas: 3 no-fail choices for reliable blooms
Hydrangea-loving gardeners who live in growing zones where big-leaved hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla) frequently fail to bloom are often a frustrated bunch. While the big pink or blue flower clusters of that species of hydrangea are beautiful, the plants are unpredictable bloomers in many regions. Gardeners can go years without seeing a single flower. Sometimes the overwintering buds freeze out, other times improper pruning is the culprit. And sometimes you do everything right, but the plants still fail to bloom. If you love hydrangeas and you want flowers each and every year without fail or fuss, skip the big-leaved hydrangeas and grow panicle hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata) instead. These spectacular hydrangeas never disappoint.
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The ultimate list of cottage garden plants
A cottage garden is an informal planting where flowers take centre stage. Imagine masses of hollyhocks, daisies, phlox, catmint, and foxgloves mingling together and spilling out of garden beds. Cottage gardens invite wandering and evoke whimsy. Their designs often include curving pathways, rose-covered arbors, and white picket fences. When planning your informal flower garden, start with a list of cottage garden plants like foxgloves, Shasta daisies, catmint, and hollyhocks. Read on to learn more about creating a beautiful, long-blooming cottage garden.
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