Calling all gardeners!
I’m moving into a new house that has two beds for gardens on the north side of the house. Each is approximately 3 feet by 10 feet and are shaded throughout the day by the house. Is there anything that will grow? I’d like to do flowers in one and veggies in the other, but I’m afraid that nothing will grow in the shade.
There is also a hydranga (sp) bush, which the owner assured me blooms, but I’d really like it to bloom with purple/blue flowers…and I know there’s a way to do this, but not sure how.
Although I do great with houseplants, I’ve never planted a garden and would appreciate any help! Going to gardening websites and looking at books is so very overwhelming to a beginner, and I’m not sure where to begin. I live in Central PA, if that helps in regards to zones.
For ornamentals, hosta for foliage and astilbe for color are good choices. I’d suggest browsing through either a garden catalog or on a nursery website like Burpee’s or Jung’s to see what shade plants catch your eye. They’ll usually have a section showing off their shade plants. I can’t help much with the veggies. That’s Purgatory Man’s department.
As far as the hydrangea, if it’s the pink/blue hybrid (Endless Summer), the color of the bloom depends on the acidity of the soil.
If nothing else, buy cheap seeds and experiment! Be forewarned, though. There is nothing more addictive than garden catalogs in February.
For annuals (this is a rental, right?), impatiens and begonias will give you flowers; coleus and caladiums will give you colorful foliage.
For veggies – they need light. You* might * be able to grow some lettuce or spinach if you’ve got a spot that gets four hours or (preferably) more, but tomatoes, peppers, etc. all need at least eight hours of sun a day. Luckily, tomatoes and peppers both do fine in pots, so if you’ve got a sunny front stoop or something, you can put them there.
There’s a huge variety of hostas, whcih are happy in the shade and bloom toward the fall. For additional folliage, I’m a big fan of ferns.
Does it make me a bad Doper that my initial response was “moss”? I second the others on hostas, though, they tend to work beautifully in North-facing gardens, not so well in West-facing, IME.
G. Schenk, COMPLETE SHADE GARDENER (Houghton Mifflin, 1984):
“For partly shaded ground I especially recommend beets, sweet cicely, cucumbers, turnips, leaf lettuce, Chinese peapods, comfrey, kale, radishes, scallions, shallots, chives, leeks, broccoli, cress, watercress, carrots, sweet potatoes[!], spinach, zucchini, cabbage, mustard, and French sorrel. As a rule, leafy vegetables accept more shade than do seed vegetables such as corn, pole beans, and peas, which will tolerate only about three hours of shade daily without noticeable impairment.”