Herb Shade Flowers Spice Up All Areas of the Garden

Calendulas, Comfrey, Lilly of the Valley, Chives, Sage, and Thyme are Shade Flowers that will add color to the shade spots of your landscape.

Selecting the right place for your herb garden is important. Many believe if the only location for a garden is in the shade or filtered sun they won’t be able to grow herbs.  This is untrue. There are herb shade flowers that will thrive in all shade, partial shade, or filtered sun.  Many herbs have adapted to either full sun or partial shade.

Perhaps you have selected a sunny location for your herb garden and then discover that certain herbs prefer a shady location. This isn’t a problem as you can plant smaller herb shade flowers next to taller plants that will filter the sunlight. If your garden includes shrubs, spreading plants, or taller plants they make the perfect spot for planting smaller shade annuals. The bed can also be planted so one end of it will receive less sunlight by being filtered out by surrounding buildings, fences, trees, etc.

If space isn’t an issue and you have shady areas you can design a beautiful shade garden by combining herb shade flowers, herb shade vines, and herb shade-loving shrubs. These herbs can be grown around the base of trees, as the tree branches will provide shade.  Pruning back the lower branches will provide filtered shade. Any plants grown at the base of a tree must be watered heavier or more often as the tree will also be consuming the water.

If your space is limited you can grow shade-loving plants in containers and place them in a shady area. Growing these shade-loving plants in containers is ideal as you can regulate the exact amount of light they receive and keep them from taking over an entire area if they are herbs that like to spread such as lemon balm, thyme, and mints. 

Requirements for each herb will need to be taken into consideration, as some will prefer a full day of sun, some filtered sun, partial shade, and others will thrive in complete shade. Also check whether they do best in dry shade, moist shade, or wet shade.

Tips for selecting a shade location based on the herb’s light requirements:

- Full Sun refers to 6 hours or more of direct sunlight a day.

- Filtered Sunlight Garden: Select the area that has equal amounts of full sun and shade and has natural obstacles to filter or block out the sunlight.

- Partial Shade Garden: Select an area that receives 3 to 6 hours of sunlight a day.

- Full Shade Garden: Select the area that receives less than 3 hours of direct sunlight a day such as the north side of walls, fences or areas under trees with a thick canopy of branches not allowing light to filter through.

- Deep Shade: Receives no direct sunlight.

Types of Shade:

- Dry Shade: found directly at the base and under trees. Plants will need extra watering

- Moist Shade: the soil is damp in a shaded area such as the north side of a building.

- Wet Shade: is usually found in an area with poor drainage and heavy soil. Work organic matter into the soil to help lighten it.

A good way to determine how much sun or shade a location is getting is by watching it and recording how many hours it spends in sunlight and how many it spends in shade.  The amount of sunlight and shade will change as the days grow longer and than shorter with the seasons.

The most common herb shade flowers include: American Pennyroyal, Angelica, Anise Hyssop, Chervil, Chives, Lemon Balm, Mint, Parsley, Sweet Cicely, Sweet Woodruff, Thyme, and Wild Ginger.

Filtered sun herbs include: Aloe Vera, Sweet Bay, and Lemon Verbena. Most herbs will do fine in the filtered sun except for Sweet Cicely, Sweet Woodruff, and Wild Ginger, these prefer shade.

Partial shade herbs include: Angelica, American Cranesbill Geraniums, Chervil, Chives, Elecampane, Ginger, Mints, Parsley, Sweet Cicely, Sweet Woodruff, and Thyme.

Full shade herbs include: Mints, Sweet Cicely, Sweet Woodruff, and Wild Ginger. An herbal shade-loving shrub is Spicebush which produces yellow flowers.

Lemon Balm is one of the herbs that has adapted to full sun, partial shade, or full shade.

Oregano can be grown in partial shade; it will thrive but won’t spread as much. Rosemary will do well in partial shade but it won’t grow quite as large.

TIPS:

For a garden that is mainly partial to full shade with very limited space and you want to grow sun-loving herbs and plants there is a little trick you can use. Place reflectors around the base of the plant or if the plants are along a fence or wall, place the reflectors behind the plant against the wall. Tinfoil is a good choice for this it will gather the sun and reflect it into the plant.

The herb shade flowers and other plants are grown in the shade will require less watering unless it is a dry shade area. The soil is moist shade areas is usually more humus-rich and moist.

Mulch these plants to help conserve moisture and cut down on weeding.

Keep working organic matter into the soil in the shade gardens, especially in the wet shade to improve the soil structure.

Pruning herb shade flowers improve the air circulation around the plants. It will help the plants put out new growth and obtain a bushy appearance.

Herb shade flowers make good companion plants to other plants.

Check with your local county extension office or nursery to find the right variety of herb shade flowers that thrive in your area.

A garden for all types of shade will be a thriving environment for herb shade flowers with a profusion of different colors.