The planting below takes up approximately one square metre (ten square feet) of space. It is just one part of three raised beds in my woodland garden at the front of my house. It contains a number of shade loving plants that provide a continuously changing tapestry of interest throughout the year. The slideshow below shows you what each of the plants is and its season of interest.
[Updated Nov 28, 2021]
Shade-loving planting Forget-me-not like flowers in spring, foliage interest for the rest of the summer A tall, strong perennial with brief white flowers in April, but good foliage the rest of the year Early flowers in February; foliage dies back by mid summer Flowering bracts from March to April, with interesting foliage throughout the year Prettily silvered foliage dies back by late summer; orange berries in Autumn Foliage is patterned, and the short lived flowers are dainty Silver/speckled foliage all year, blue and pink flowers late spring little whorls of foliage stand 6 inches high. Clusters of white flowers in May Yellow/orange trumpets in clumps in March/Purple spires in Autumn Tiny, running fern, simple filigree naturalness
Here is the bed from a different angle.
These plants live happily alongside each other as they all require similar conditions. The season starts in February with the snowdrops putting on an excellent show (see Spring Arrives in the Woodland Garden), followed by bright clumps of dwarf narcissus. After the flowers in the picture above fade there are follow-on plants such as aquilegia, pink campion, woodruff and geraniums (see Late Spring Flowers for Dappled Shade). The evergreen Butcher’s Broom provides interest all year round. The dwarf hermaphrodite form I grow ‘John Redmond’ fruits reliably. Foliage plays an important part with the Brunnera and Pulmonaria continuing to impress long after the flowers fade (see Foliage in Shade). A potential low point is late summer, when most of the flowers are over and seed heads and tatty foliage can be a bit of a mess, however, a thorough tidy up, hedge trimming and judicious pruning gives it a new lease of life (see Ten ways to plug the August gap)