To light up shade, choose Erythroniums

With colourful spring flowers and interesting patterned foliage, hound’s tooth violets are an invaluable addition to a shady spot, as Graham Rice explains

- Graham Rice

SPRING brings us a wealth of attractive shade-loving flowers, and mingling them into a dappled tapestry is one of the most fascinating ways to spark up the garden after winter. Erythroniums are amongst the most valuable threads in the weave because they bring us so much more than just flowers.

These prolific members of the lily family boast upright stems up to 15in (40cm) tall, from which hang up to a dozen attractive blooms, each with six swept-back petals – a little like a cyclamen. In colour, they range from purple, through the pink and lilac shades, to white and yellow. But that’s not all.

Fantastic foliage

At their best from February to June, erythroniums also feature attractive foliage. In some, including many varieties of E. dens-canis, it’s the rich dark markings – set against a green background – that extend the interest beyond flowering time. In others, such as the justly popular E. tuolumnense, it’s the bright and glossy green that catches the eye. Either way, foliage colour is a valuable secondary feature.

No tatty leaves

There’s one other thing these spring flowerers have to offer (and it is a feature that is, I’ll grant you, double-edged): soon after flowering, the leaves dry up and fade away until the following spring. Unlike hellebores, say, the foliage doesn’t hang around for months looking more and more tatty; it does the decent thing and disappears. And this makes space for plants like hostas, which are developing strongly just as the erythroniums are fading way.

In a way, erythroniums a similar to spring bulbs like daffodils and scillas: plant in the autumn for flowering in spring. But the fleshy bulbs hate drying out, s it’s not a good idea t buy them from garden centres where they may w ve been hanging on or weeks, getting more and more desiccated.