Browse Plants

Silver leaf is a flowering evergreen shrub with arching branches and woolly, silvery gray leaves. In summer, it bears solitary, bell-shaped rose-purple flowers an inch across.

Sea lavender is a rosette-forming perennial with mid- to dark-green leaves to 12 inches long, occasionally to 24 inches. Deep lavender-blue flowers are borne in panicles made of spikelets on wiry stems.

Silver-blue, rushlike foliage is graced by one of the most distinctive flowers of all grasses: the inflorescence looks like little origami birds. 

This dwarf, non-fruiting olive cultivar is an evergreen tree reaching 4 to 6 feet high and wide. It has attractive dark green leaves.

Prickly pear cactus is a clump-forming and semi-prostrate plant. Flattened round-to-oval green pads 2-10 inches across have scattered needle-like spines and tufts of glochids (bristles). Showy bright yellow flowers appear in late spring and summer, maturing to edible, pulpy, red or purple fruit.

Rue is an evergreen shrub with an upright, rounded form and cool, ferny blue-green foliage. Clusters of cup-shaped, four-petaled yellow flowers appear in summer.

Long, narrow leaves grow in rosettes near the ground. Flower stems shoot upward to 2 feet with 3-inch-wide, petunia-like, purple, blue, or scarlet flowers marked with broad veins of gold. Cultivars include 'Splash,' 'Bolero,' and the more compact-growing 'Casino'.

At first glance, this Japanese woodland native does not look as if it belongs in a shade garden, but
I find its spreading foliage and light-colored flowers do wonderfully as a small ground cover in dry-shade areas. Creamy yellow flower spikes sporadically appear from summer to fall, but hand-size, hairy green leaves are another attraction of this plant. It contrasts well with so many other fine-textured shade perennials that the flowers can be considered just a bonus. Japanese yellow sage is not choosy about soil pH or type. The spreading stems root as they touch the ground, eventually forming large, wide clumps. You can easily transplant any piece of rooted stem to fill gaps in your shade garden. -Jimmy Turner, Perennials for dry shade, Fine Gardening issue #133

Plant a succulent sedum in the shade? Yes. Ground-cover sedums do well in dry-shade areas, especially in places that have high summer heat. Shallow, dry soils are no problem for this plant, as it stores extra water in its foliage. Fish-scale sedum spreads by runners forming a mat of overlapping, rounded foliage, which resembles fish scales. Bright yellow flower spikes appear over the shiny foliage during summer, and the cooler weather of autumn transforms the evergreen foliage to reddish bronze. I tuck this plant between exposed roots of deciduous trees, where little else will grow. Make sure not to plant in moist or waterlogged soils as it will rot easily. Any piece of this plant will root to form a new colony, so it is easy to spread about the shade garden. -Jimmy Turner, Perennials for dry shade, Fine Gardening issue #133