Great Shade Perennial Combo

Most shade plants bloom in the spring, but you can still give even the darkest corners of your garden great color all summer. Pick plants with colorful foliage and contrasting textures. This combination is Trifolium 'Dark Dancer', Heuchera 'Midnight Rose' (Coral Bell), and Athyrium 'Ghost' (Ghost fern). Dark purples of the Heuchera and Trifolium contrast with the light green of the Ghost fern, plus the distinct textures of the leaves create a rich garden tapestry.



You can of course add flowering plants to the mix. This Aquilegia 'Swan Burgundy and White' is a perfect color match to the combo.

Trifolium and Athryium are both deer-resistant, but the Heuchera and the Aquilegia are not. A deer resistant substitution for the Heuchera could be Black Mondo grass.

Car Trunk Trees: Halesia carolina (Carolina Silverbell)

Number five in our "Car Trunk Trees" series is a showy, hard to find flowering tree that will grow in the shade. We have these hard-to-find beauties in stock in easy-to-carry, easy-to-plant, 2 gallon containers. Really, what more can you ask for?

Halesia carolina (Carolina Silverbell)

Why we love it: Striated bark, showy bell shaped flowers, AND it can grow in the shade!






Hardiness Zones: 5 to 8
Height: 30 ft to 40 ft Spread: 20 ft to 35 ft
Form: arching
Type: low branch profile with a rounded crown
Annual Growth Rate: 12 to 15 inches
Flowers: White Blooms April/May, seeds ripen in September/October

This tree grows in shade or sun. Prefers moist, well-drained, acidic soil. Dirr says the Halesia carolina makes "a great tree for understory planting along a stream, in the back of the shrub boarder, against a background of large conifers, or as a single specimen, yet [it is] not common anywhere in America."

Halesia carolina has striated exfoliating bark and bright yellow fruit in the fall. This tree is often confused with the Styrax japonicus fargesii (Japanese Snowbell) (profiled in the previous entry) because both have spring-blooming, white, downward-facing flowers, but the Halesia has the exfoliating bark and is more shade tolerant.

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