Topic: perennials for a shady place

[spikey]

looking for perennials to go in pots that will grow in shady places..... but please no hostas
 wife's orders says we have enough......lol :P ::)

[Mrs Ava]

Did this once, then the site went down!  grrr

So, you have the ferns, so many wonderful leaves and colours to choose from. Then any of the woodland plants.  I have a couple of dicentra that thrive and look stunning in the deep shade of my willow tree.  Then there are astilbes, foxgloves, primulas and so on.  I guess watering woul be the main issue with any of these plants.  Oh, and bulbs, if it is seasonal shade, then spring bulbs who do their thing before the canopy is thick would look great!

[montanum]

A couple of extra plants to try might be some of the geranium species for flowers and also the Heuchera's for wonderful coloured foliage.

[beejay]

Can I recommend Saxifraga fortunei, a woodland plant I discovered last year. It flowers in the autumn. I bought a pink & a white, the pink one flowered its socks off for weeks. What about Iris foetidissima & Helleborus foetidissima also.

[Tulipa]

Geranium maccrorhizum alba does really wonderful in my garden against a north facing wall and i am sure would be fine in a pot.  Prunella grandiflora too.

I like the sound of the saxifrage fortunei which I shall look out for as I have a north facing border to plant now where we have built a new retaining wall.

[wardy]

Ajuga - I have some in a pot and it's been flowering for months.  Tiarella cordifolia, pick a back plant which I think begins with U and that's a good one for a pot. 
 :)

[Robert_Brenchley]

Any of the hellebores will co well, most spring bulbs, Trilliums, loads of things. There are plenty of alternatives to Hostas, which I find get a bit samey if they're not broken up by other plants.

[clairenpaul]

There are lots of perennials which will work in a shady place - we have hellebores, foxgloves, dicentra (although the white one looks stunning, much better than the red) and lots of ferns, hostas (oops sorry  :) growing under our willow tree. We've also chucked some perennial wild flower seeds down but the jury' still out on them