Thursday, May 28, 2009

Five Spring Blooming Shade Perennial Flowers

An essential part of any shade garden plan, is coordinating the blooming periods of your shade perennial flowers. By carefully combining shade perennial flowers that bloom both early in the season and late in the season, you will be able to create a shade perennial garden full of flowers all season long.

This post is part of a two part series exploring the best spring blooming and fall blooming shade perennial flowers. In this post I explore five spring blooming shade perennial flowers. In my next post, I will discuss the best fall blooming shade perennial flowers for your garden.

Here are some of the best spring blooming shade perennial flowers for your shade garden:
  1. Lungwort. This plant resembles the Hosta plant, with dramatic gray green foliage. But while the Hosta has white flowers in late fall, the Lungwort produces beautiful pink or blue flowers in early spring. They do best in Zones 5-8.

  2. Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla). This is a favorite spring blooming shade perennial flower. It has sky-blue flowers that resemble forget-me-nots, and they do well even in full shade perennial gardens. Good for Zones 3-7.

  3. Wood Anemones (Anemone nemorosa). These spring blooming shade perennial flowers are grown from a rhizome and generally pink or blue in color. They are usually under eight inches in height and suitable for Zones 4-8.

  4. Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis). These shade loving perennial flowers are white and one of the earliest bloomers each year. They are small (usually six inches in height or less), and are grown from perennial bulbs. Suitable for zones 2-9.

  5. Columbines (Aquilegia). These shade suitable perennial flowers are trumpet shaped and come in a wide variety of colors. They generally bloom in late may or early June and are a favorite and bees and hummingbirds. They can grow up to three feet in height, are suitable for Zones 3-9, and self-seed easily.
Check back tomorrow to read about the best Fall Blooming Shade Perennial Flowers. You can also find many valuable articles about gardening in the shade on the Shade Perennial Garden Home Page.