Bright Ideas for Shade

Cyclamen hederifolium blooms in the fall and holds its foliage throughout the winter. Photo: Richie Steffen/Great Plant Picks

Four years ago, Great Plant Picks (GPP), the primary educational program at the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle, presented shade as a theme; gardeners snapped up the posters and handouts. Back by popular demand, Great Plant Picks selections for 2017 focus on plants that do well in shade and are drought tolerant. (You’ll find GPP definitions for various types of shade—light, open, dappled, and deep—on the resources page of the GPP website.)

Indeed, one of the most problematic sites for gardening in the maritime Pacific Northwest is in deep shade with little to no direct sunlight, beneath an almost impenetrable canopy of trees with less than one-quarter of the sky visible during the day. Most often, this canopy consists of native conifers with dense root systems that wick up virtually every drop of moisture during the dry season. Unless planting is strictly limited to natives, this can be a challenging predicament for the gardener who is looking for more variety and w...