Re: Plants for Shade under Oak tree!

	We had a huge shade bed under a white oak for 14 years in our
former garden, and for 3 years this spring in our new yard under a pin
oak. (This is zone 5b, central Illinois where it can get darned cold in
winter and very hot and muggy in summer.)
	In both beds, we opted for the raised bed method.  Both beds
were circular, and we used pieces of branches for a more natural edging
than the landscape timbers we use for raised scree beds in the sunny
garden.
	We filled with a mixture of leaf mold, sharp sand, and peat moss
with a shredded cedar bark mulch after planting.
	Plant suggestions:
	plants with beautiful foliage:  hosta, heuchera (lots of new
nicely marked kinds for foliage interest, such as Pewter Veil),
pulmonaria (again, lovely silvered leaf varieties are available), Lamium
(White Nancy is very pretty), Lamiastrum (similar to Lamium but a yellow
flower--be careful about too much spreading, however), tiarella (similar
to heuchera);
	plants that are tall for the "back" portion and include some
late bloomers:  Japanese anemone (very long-lived once established),
trycyrtis (toad lily, nice for late fall bloom), kirengoshoma palmata
(lovely Japanese woodlander with lovely foliage and nodding yellow bells
late in summer), cimifuga racemosa (bugbane), amsonia (nice blue
star-shaped flowers, yellow leaves in autumn), rocket senecio (tall
yellow spires of bloom), lobelia cardinalis (hard to establish), tall
meadow rue (thalictrum);
	early blooming shrubs: hardy azaleas, dwarf rhododendrons of all
kinds, pieris;
	early blooming wildflowers:   trillium for spring bloom, stately
white bleedingheart (dicentra), shooting stars (dodecatheon), bloodroot
(sanguinaria canadensis), wild geranium (geranium maculatum), solomon's
seal (including the variegated and the dwarf), solomon's plume, yellow
wood poppy (stylophorum diphylum), hellebores (lenten/Xmas rose);
	spring bulbs that appreciate or at least tolerate shade after
blooming:  snowdrops, winter aconite, anemone blanda, fritillaria
meleagris, erythronium (dogtooth violet), chionodoxa, squills, grape
hyacinths;
	creeping groundcovers:  ginger (asarum europeana and
canadensis), epimediums, gallium odorata (sweet woodruff), prunella
webbiana, violets (in our case, whether you plant them or not!)
	ferns of all kinds:  royal, cinnamon, interrupted (all tall
stately ferns), Christmas fern (always green), Japanese painted fern
(especially nice for the front where its short stature and beautiful
coloring shows best), Autumn fern (fronds turn bronzy reddish in fall),
male fern, lady fern, ostriches (though they do like more sun and can
spread pretty fast), maidenhair (lacy and lovely, needs a little gravel
or dolomite around the base to sweeten their soil), beech fern (both the
narrow and the broad leaved kinds are lovely), and sensitive fern (in
the wettest spot).

Sorry to go on so long, but this should get you started.  Post again and
e-mail if you have any questions.

Enjoy your shady oak bed!


Susan Campanini
in east central Illinois
zone 5b, min temp -15F×
e-mail:  campanin@uiuc.edu
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PERENNIALS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index