Shade-tolerant
Add color and interest with these plants that thrive in the shade or that gain their best color with less light.
Annuals (8)
Butterfly Attracting (81)
Creative Containers (52)
Drought-Defiant (87)
Midwest Native (84)
Salt-Tolerant Plants (26)
Shade-tolerant (54)
Trees & Shrubs (74)
Aconitum cammarum ''Stainless Steel''
Common Name: Monkshood
Stainless Steel Monkshood plants have slender stems with glossy green foliage require no staking except after high winds. Pale blue flowers bloom in late summer and give the plant its common name....
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Aconitum fischeri
Common Name: Monkshood
Thick leathery stems with lavender blue flowers and glossy dark green foliage. Blooms in late summer. No staking....
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Aconitum henryi ''Sparks Variety''
Common Name: Monkshood
Sparks Variety Monkshood plants have thick leathery stems with glossy dark green foliage require no staking except after high winds. Lavender blue flowers bloom in late summer....
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Actaea simplex atropurpurea ''Pink Spike' and 'Brunette''
Common Name: Purple Snakeroot
Pink Spike and Brunette Bugbane are two cultivars with dark, dramatic foliage paired with abundant vertical spikes of white blooms. Easily-grown perennial dramatic for the fully to partly shaded border....
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Adiatum pedatum
Common Name: Maidenhair Fern
Delicate appearance belies Maidenhair Fern's toughness. Fronds unfurl fairly late in the spring. Can form large colonies of a pleasant medium green. A deciduous fern....
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Aesculus pavia
Common Name: Red Buckeye
Red Buckeye is a short tree or shrub, usually single-stemmed, open habit. Fast-growing on rich, moist soils. In April, its pikes of showy red flowers are pollinated by ruby-throated hummingbirds. The palmate leaves offer great texture but the foliage...
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Ajuga reptans 'Black Scallop, Caitlin's Giant, Chocolate Chip'
Common Name: Ajuga
Black Scallop, Caitlin's Giant, Chocolate Chip are three of our favorite ajuga varieties. Ajuga is one of the best known and most useful ground covers, suiting many different situations and color schemes.Depending on the variety, the flowers may be r...
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Alchemilla mollis
Common Name: Lady's Mantle
Lady's Mantle plants form a mound of rounded, velvety soft olive-green leaves, which catch and hold water drops, then sparkle in the sun. Sprays of chartreuse flowers are a nice filler for cut arrangements. Excellent for edging. Lady's Mantle plants ...
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Amelanchier laevis
Common Name: Alleghany Serviceberry
Alleghany Serviceberry is a small, deciduous, usually multi-trunked understory tree or tall shrub. Showy, fragrant spring flowers followed by small, round, edible berries which ripen to dark purplish-black in June....
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Amelanchier X arborea ''Autumn Brilliance''
Common Name: Autumn Brilliance Serviceberry
Autumn Brilliance Serviceberry is an easy-to-grow small tree with white spring flowers and clean summer foliage, persistent leaves and brilliant red fall color....
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Amsonia hubrechtii
Common Name: Narrowleaf Blue Star
Spring clusters of pale blue, five-petaled flowers are the primary reason most gardeners choose Narrowleaf Blue Star, a native of the southwestern U.S. But the airy golden fall foliage is just as important for an interesting landscape....
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Aquilegia canadensis
Common Name: Columbine
Columbine is an openly branching plant bears abundant red and yellow nodding flowers in spring. The distinctive flowers offer nectar to butterflies and hummingbirds. Tolerates part sun....
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Aruncus dioicus
Common Name: Goat's Beard
Goat's Beard is a bushy plant with large plumes of frothy, creamy white flowers in June for many weeks. The seed heads that form after flowering are quite ornamental. Foliage is similar to astilbe but the growth habit is much larger and shrublike....
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Asarum arifolium
Common Name: Wild Ginger
Arrowleaf Wild Ginger is a native plant that features two smooth, broad spade-shaped, dark green, basal leaves. Cup-shaped, insignificant, purplish brown flowers give the plant its nickname, "Little Brown Jug", and appear in spring on short, ground-l...
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Asarum canadense
Common Name: Wild Ginger
Canadian Wild Ginger is a native plant that features two downy, heart-shaped to kidney-shaped, handsomely veined, dark green, basal leaves. Cup-shaped, insignificant, purplish brown flowers appear in spring on short, ground-level stems....
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Astilbe X arendsii ''Flamingo', 'Pink Lightening', 'Sprite' and more'
Common Name: Astilbe
Rugged and beautiful, Astilbe cultivar varieties are perfect for shady gardens. Long and colorful spikes are held above divided foliage in summer, when color in the shade garden is hard to come by. Use them in groups in the woodland border, or mass t...
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Athyrium niponicum
Common Name: Japanese Painted Fern
Japanese Painted Fern slowly multiplies to form a large clump twenty four inches across. The fronds are approximately eighteen inches long and are a soft-grey metallic color with hints of red and blue. The center stem is red so the contrast is excell...
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Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost'
Common Name: Jack Frost Brunnera
'Jack Frost' leaves are a distinctive silvery white with green primary and secondary veins and a thin green rim around the leaf edges. The basal foliage forms a hosta-like mound of heart-shaped leaves that are attractive throughout the growing season...
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Calamagrostis brachytricha
Common Name: Korean Feather-reed Grass
Korean Feather-reed Grass is a clump-forming, warm season grass with bright green leaves. Pink-tinted late summer blooms fade to cream in fall and finish a straw color in winter. A graceful addition to the shade or part shade garden! One of the few f...
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Ceratostigma plumbaginoides
Common Name: Hardy Plumbago
Hardy Plumbago is an outstanding, long-lived groundcover that slowly weaves itself into the garden fabric, creating large drifts of fall color. The deep blue flowers are numerous and long lasting beginning in early fall. As the flowering finishes, th...
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Cercis canadensis ''Appalachian Red''
Common Name: Appalachian Red Redbud
Appalachian Red Redbud is a cultivar that explodes with brilliant fuchsia pink flowers in spring in a much brighter shade than the native redbud. Does well in sun to dappled shade and will adapt to any average garden soil....
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Cercis chinensis ''Avondale''
Common Name: Avondale Redbud
Avondale Redbud is a show-stopper! The most showy of all the redbuds, Avondale Redbud offers deep purple flowers along its branches and even on the main trunk. Grown as a single stem or multi-stemmed tree, it flowers at an early age....
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Chionanthus virginicus
Common Name: Fringetree
Shimmering, white fringed flowers cover Fringetree in May or June followed by small, round, bluish olive-shaped fruit on female trees in fall. Leaves often turn bright yellow in fall. Grow in part sun to shade as a small tree or shrub. Beautiful as a...
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Convallaria majalis
Common Name: Lily of the Valley
Lily of the Valley is an old-fashioned perennial that looks so delicate with its tiny bell shaped flowers. But, this hardy shady lover is anything but delicate! Lily of the Valley is a tough-as-nails perennial that can grow in the deep shade of large...
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Cornus mas ''Golden Glory''
Common Name: Golden Glory Cornelian Cherry
Golden Glory Cornelian Cherry is a multi-stemmed, low-branching deciduous shrub that is more erect in appearance and more vigorous than the native species. Tiny, star-like, yellow flowers borne in umbels which appear in late winter to early spring be...
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Dicentra spectabilis 'Gold Heart'
Common Name: Gold Heart Bleeding Heart
Gold Heart Bleeding Heart offers vivid golden foliage on large open plants. It is a stand out in shade gardens! Traditional heart shaped pink flowers dangling from long wands above the leaves....
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Dryopteris erythrosora 'Brilliance'
Common Name: Brilliance Autumn Fern
Brilliance is an improved Autumn Fern. Plants form a colorful groundcover with pink fiddleheads that turn coppery orange as they unfurl. Fronds age to a lustrous dark green and remain well into winter. New growth continues through the season, giving ...
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Euonymus atropurpurea
Common Name: Eastern Wahoo
Eastern Wahoo is a shrub or small tree that blooms in the spring with small purple flowers followed by scarlet red fruit that is enjoyed by birds. Brilliant red fall foliage....
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Geranium 'Rozanne'
Common Name: Rozanne Hardy Geranium
Rozanne Hardy Geranium is the longest blooming and most prolific blue-flowered geranium. The flowers continue blooming through the heat of midsummer, and the deeply cut leaves remain lovely, on plants that are spreading but not sprawling....
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Geranium maculata
Common Name: Wild Geranium
In spring, this clump-forming woodland perennial forms a mound of deeply cut, palmately-lobed, dark green foliage. Wild Geranium flowers for six to seven weeks with 1 1/4" diameter, medium-pink to lilac, saucer-shaped, five-petaled flowers....
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Hamamelis vernalis
Common Name: Spring Witchhazel
From late winter into early spring Spring Witchhazel, a unique native shrub, blooms when little else is flowering. The fragrant yellow flowers can persist for three to four weeks and may be clustered or solitary. Flowers are yellow to dark red in col...
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Hamamelis virginiana
Common Name: Ozark Witchhazel
Ozark Witchhazel is a tall shrub or small tree with upright spreading branches that form an irregular crown. Ozark Witchhazel blooms with yellow, fragrant flowers that open in late fall or early winter. The flowers are a boon to migrating hummingbird...
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Helleborus foetidus
Common Name: Bear's Paw Hellebores
Unlike most hellebores that have separate stems for blooms and foliage, Bear's Paw Hellebores has blooms and foliage on the same stems. This unusual characteristic creates special winter interest when new chartreuse bloom stalks rise and bloom above ...
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Hosta 'Fragrant Blue'
Common Name:
Fragrant Blue Hosta is a small- to medium-sized hosta with thick, chalky blue-green leaves. Fragrant Blue Hosta holds its color due to the tendency to produce new foliage throughout the growing season. Fragrant light lavender flowers late summer....
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Hosta 'Blue Mouse Ears'
Common Name: Blue Mouse Ears Hosta
Blue Mouse Ears Hosta has small round, heart shaped blue-green leaves. Dense, mounded habit with moderate growth rate. Thick leaves exhibit a tiny white edge, particularly in early Spring, but evident throughout the entire season. Flowers pale laven...
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Hosta 'Lakeside Elfin Fire'
Common Name: Lakeside Elfin Fire Hosta
Lakeside Elfin Fire Hosta is a dwarf hosta with small, lance-shaped leaves. Lakeside Elfin Fire Hosta leaves have red spotted petioles and a white center flecked with green surrounded by a dark green margin. Purple striped flowers bloom in midsummer....
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Hosta ''Halcyon''
Common Name: Halcyon Hosta
Halcyon Hosta is one of the best and most popular of the blue hosta cultivars. An erect plant that featuring a mound of flat, spear-shaped, heavily-textured, blue-green leaves and racemes of bell-shaped, pale lilac-blue flowers on 26" scapes....
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Hosta 'Red October'
Common Name: Red October Hosta
'Red October' grows in an arching mound to 10" tall and spreads over time to as much as 28" wide. It is perhaps best noted for its showy red leaf petioles. 'Red October' has dark green leaves with pointed tips and open bases. Leaves are silvery-whi...
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Hosta X ''Sum and Substance''
Common Name: Sum and Substance Hosta
You can't beat Hostas as a carefree, enduring ground cover for shade, but certain varieties stand out on their own as specimen plants. One of the best is 'Sum and Substance', which forms huge mounds up to six feet across with deeply veined, chartreus...
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Hydrangea arborescens ''Hayes Starburst''
Common Name: Hayes Starburst Hydrangea
Hayes Starburst Hydrangea is a beautiiful selection of the native Smooth Hydrangea. The flowers first open as typical white lacecaps but within days the outer florets double and form a starburst effect. Then the interior flowers also become double, f...
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Hydrangea macrophylla Bailmer
Common Name: Endless Summer® Hydrangea
The first Hydrangea macrophylla that blooms on both old and new wood. Flowers virtually all season long....
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Indocalamus tessellatus
Common Name: Bigleaf Bamboo
Bigleaf Bamboo is an extremely hardy semi dwarf species that bears the largest leaves of any bamboo in cultivation, up to 24 inches by four inches. It adapts very well to shaded sites and is a favorite pick for indoor container growth....
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Iris cristata
Common Name: Crested Iris
Crested Iris has blue flowers that float above the foliage. Short, dense foliage remains handsome through summer. Good choice for a naturalized ground cover....
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Matteuccia struthiopteris struthiopteris
Common Name: Ostrich Fern
Ostrich Fern is one of our tallest native ferns. Its bright green deciduous fronds provide a dramatic backdrop to the shady border. Spreads by underground runners, so it's an excellent choice for naturalizing in dappled shade. Prefers shady sites wit...
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Mertensia virginica
Common Name: Virginia Bluebells
Pink flower buds open to sky blue on Virginia Bluebells, a spring ephemeral. Ephemeral plants are those whose foliage goes dormant in summer. Virginia Bluebells are pretty when combined with Celandine Poppy....
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Polygonatum biflorum
Common Name: Solomon's Seal
Small, greenish-white flowers hang from Solomon's Seal's arching stems giving way to blue summer berries. Solomon's Seal's fall foliage turns golden. Develops handsome stands in shady environments, spreading slowly by creeping rhizomes....
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Polygonatum odoratum 'Variegatum'
Common Name: Variegated Solomon's Seal
Variegated Solomon’s Seal is a graceful shade plant. The handsome foliage features narrow, pure white streaks along the margins of the leaves. Leaves appear on arched burgundy stems and turn a brilliant golden hue in fall. Fragrant, bell-shaped white...
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Polystichum acrostichoides
Common Name: Christmas Fern
Christmas Fern has glossy, deep-green, fronds that emerge upright and arch gently. They eventually lay down to cover the ground as they mature....
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Prunus virginiana
Common Name: Common Chokecherry
Common Chokecherry is a small suckering tree or large shrub forms large upright clumps. Attractive white spring flower clusters are followed by red fruits that ripen to purple. Common Chokecherry has an unusual tolerance for shade and can be grown in...
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Pulmonaria ''Silver Shimmers''
Common Name: Lungwort
Silver Shimmers Lungwort provides a bright spot of color to welcome in the spring. Clusters of relatively large, steel-blue flowers are suspended above the long, wavy foliage which remains low. Silver Shimmers Lungwort leaves are heavily saturated wi...
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Stylophorum distichum
Common Name: Celandine Poppy
Celandine Poppy is an early spring bloomer perfect for the shade garden with showy, yellow flowers above lobed green leaves. Foliage attractive into the summer....
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Syneilesis aconitifolia
Common Name: Shredded Umbrella Plant
Shredded Umbrella Plant is a rare woodland species, native to the dry hillsides of Japan and Korea. In early spring, the white wooly leaves push through the ground, like may apples. The fascinating foliage flattens out atop 18” stems by mid-spring. A...
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Tiarella cordifolia
Common Name: Foam Flower
Foam Flower is a native clump-forming plant that spreads by runners. Tiny, white flowers with very long stamens appear in airy racemes in spring for about six weeks on numerous wiry stems....
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Tradescantia ernestiana
Common Name: Woodland Spiderwort
Woodland Spiderwort is a tough species of native spiderwort. Woodland Spiderwort sports long and narrow green leaves with no whitish coating like other spiderworts. From late spring into early summer, bright clusters of flowers are produced prolifica...
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