PLANTS WITH PURPOSE Part 6: Shade

Not sure what to plant in shade? Then follow nature's lead, says Carol Klein, as she selects fabulous plants adapted to low light

-  Carol Klein

For a plant to thrive in shade, it has to be a shade-lover. Sounds obvious? Yet it's so easy to expect a plant to put up with wherever you want to put it, just because you think it would look good there. With any plant, our main consideration has to be what that plant needs.

Of course, when considering new plants for any situation in our garden, we must first get to know the planting site and its soil. When we acknowledge what we have in any particular spot in our garden, we can then set about choosing plants that will thrive there.

Almost all our gardens have some shade, perhaps cast by a tree, the house or a garage at certain times of the day. Some people see shade as a problem, but for me it represents an opportunity to grow some of the most exciting plants on the planet.

Nature's shady places, in particular deciduous woods, offer plenty of clues about what to grow in shady spots in our gardens. But they don't totally solve the problem. In the British Isles, spring is pre-eminently show time for the woodland floor, from January's snowdrops to June's bluebells, exploiting the extra light while the branches overhead are bare. In other woodlands, notably those of temperate Asia, in addition to plants that are at their best before the tree canopy fills in overhead, there's a batch of autumn flowerers - anemones, tricyrtis and kirengeshoma - that take advantage of the thinning canopy to do their thing.

One of the best examples of these is the group of Asiatic anemones usually known as Japanese anemones. Their elegant, chalice-shaped blooms in shades of pink or white are prolific and reliable without any attention. Another Asiatic perennial, Kirengeshoma palmata, produces soft yellow drooping bells on tall stems. This is a class act and proves that, far from presenting insurmountable problems, shady places offer a marvellous opportunity to grow an array of special plants.