If you have wooded areas around your home, you may be looking how to plant your woodlands spaces with colorful plants that bloom in early spring. Spring really brightens up wooded areas with lots of colors just bursting out a big “Hello!” I think that is what sparks us to want to add color to shaded areas. The artist part of us comes out wanting to splash color into our surroundings and the fun part is that it doesn’t stop with spring just as Claude Monet did at his garden in Giverny. He even planted his woodland areas with colorful plants. Monet's pond garden as well was carefully planned by Monet himself. Over one hundred years old and his gardens still look as beautiful today as we can imagine that they did when he first painted them. 

                    

Here is a listing of plants from evergreen ground covers, to perennials, flowering shrubs and trees that will grow in shade areas. Most will bloom with spring colors while a few others will just add something special to the blend. Strategically placing plants with color can give a whole new look to your woodlands or shaded areas. It’s especially easy if you have a digital camera. You can take pictures of the areas you want to enhance with color or texture, print them out or just study them on the screen and you can visualize how you would like to see the woodlands as the seasons unfold.

Ground cover plants for shade:

Ajuga

Pachysandra

Vinca

Cotoneaster

(creeping) Moss

Perennials for shade:

Ferns

Tiarella

Anemone

Aster

Astilbe

Dicentra

Helleborus

Heucheras

Hypericum

Hosta

Solomon’s seal

Carex

Liriope

Shrubs for shade:

Mountain laurels

Sambucus

Reblooming azaleas

Rhododendrons

Bamboo

Carolina allspice

Shrub dogwoods

Hydrangeas

Nandina

Holly

Trees for shade:

White flowering dogwood

Red bud

Serviceberry

Sourwood

Cedar

Hemlock

White pine

Sycamore

Green ash

Poplars

Don’t try to do your entire project at one time. Working on this project over several years allows you to see that you are on the right track for what you want as the outcome.

Visit Greenwood Nursery for shade loving plants.

And don’t forget about ways to move through your woodlands area. Bark mulch walkways and stepping stones make great paths. Benches, whether wood, stone or metal, give excellent reasons to sit and enjoy from the inside out. Rocks of all sizes and even boulders look stately with moss growing over them and are right at home in wooded and shaded spaces.

I hope this has given you some ideas to build on to make your own woodland area as beautiful as a Monet painting.

• Correcting Drainage Problems in the Garden and Landscape(gardeningwithcheryl.com)