The shady back garden

Camden: The Shady Back Garden

Shade shouldn't be seen as a limitation, but rather as an opportunity. In this lesson, I'll explore how I chose plants for these conditions and designed the planting to create a tranquil atmosphere, whilst providing year-round interest and making best use of the small space.

Although I was inspired by British woodlands for this garden, the majority of the plants I've used are ornamentals derived from woodland plants around the world, which have then been selected for their garden worthiness, although all share an ability to thrive in these conditions.

By opening up to the full choice of ornamental plants, we can access a great range of complementary elements, which when composed carefully, can all work together to produce a whole that feels right.

Seeing the Conditions as an Opportunity to Work With, Not an Obstacle to Overcome

As we have a cool, north-facing site, I've chosen things that are all adapted to this environment. However, this shouldn't be seen as a restriction; rather, it's an opportunity to create a garden full of plants that really love these conditions. Since you're working with the environment and not against it, the plants will automatically thrive.

Looking at a natural woodland, you'll find layering, from trees, to shrubs, to perennial layers ranging from emergents to ground covers, to spring bulbs. We've essentially echoed that in this garden:

• We used the canopies around us as the structure and the basis for our palette of greens
• Then we worked through all those different layers, so that in a very small space, we have a wealth of plants that work together as a community and an environment.

Making the Most of the Space Available

The garden has to work not just when you come into it, but also as a backdrop when looking out from the window. These layers of greens all work together so you don't quite know where the garden begins or ends, and from inside it feels much bigger than it is.

Once you come into the garden, we've created a sense of journey:

1. You come out of the house onto a little terrace with a place to sit,
2. steps take you up into the garden,
3. a little walk takes you on a circuit around the garden, from light into shade underneath the bay,
4. here there is a seat, where you're encouraged to pause and look back at the house,
5. as you continue, your focus is held by a water bowl as you move around it.

This simple loop from one side of the garden to the other, with a pausing space where you re-orientate your view, means that on arriving back at the terrace, you feel you've been on a journey.

Balance Evergreen and Seasonal

The bay tree is a big driver of the mood of this garden. We're also borrowing the neighbour's Magnolia grandiflora. These are both very particular greens, and give the garden a certain weight and mood.

I keyed into these drivers to bring those greens further out into the garden. I chose the following plants to work with them:

1. Trachelospermum asiaticum – a hardy evergreen jasmine. We put this on the walls to soften them and clothe them for the winter months, and in summer it's covered in white flowers.
2. Parthenocissus 'Henryana' – a beautiful Virginia creeper that has a silvery midrib to the leaf and is really good in shade, so we've put this down at the far end of the garden.
3. Schizophragma integrifolia – a climbing hydrangea with a very glamorous white lacecap flower. We've put this on the side wall, where it will build up on top of the wall to increase the privacy.

As a contrast to the evergreens, I wanted to make sure we were inviting all the four seasons into the garden. Therefore, the next thing we looked at were plants that can provide year-round structure:

• I used two Amelanchier trees diagonally opposite each other, which also help screen the seat.
• I've used multi-stem specimens because the stems are very beautiful and sculptural. I'm a great fan of using multi-stem trees because these become a beautiful thing to look at in winter.

The Tree and Shrub Layer

After the climbers, the next thing I put in were the two Amelanchier trees. These work well all year round, from spring blossom to magnificent autumn colour, and in between, an airy canopy of foliage in an easy shade of green that works well with other plants and contrasts with the evergreens behind.

• They're a very easy-to-use small tree that is structurally beautiful, doesn't cast too much shade, and whose roots don't inhibit the other plants they're growing with.

Then we worked down into the shrubs. As this is only a small space, I haven't used many. I've used mostly deciduous shrubs, which complement the Amelanchier and create seasonality in the open areas.

• Summer-flowering Magnolia wilsonii.
• Fuchsia magellanica var. molineae, a modest-sized shrub you can underplant to create layering.

Evergreen Shrubs

I've used very few evergreen shrubs, as we're borrowing evergreens from outside the garden, but also because they can eat a space up, and don't allow things to grow underneath them easily. I've just used two groups of evergreen shrubs to buffer the rear corners, essentially to stop the garden feeling like a box.

1. Mahonia eurybracteata in the darkest shade at the back – a species with a very delicate leaf.
2. Sarcococca hookeriana in the corner by the bench – a winter box with terrifically perfumed flowers that create a lovely reason for going down into the garden in the winter.

Selecting Leaves to Form a Tapestry

If you're working with a small space, it's very useful to think about the scale of the foliage.

Here, in this rear garden, which is only 10 x 8 m, I've used predominantly delicate, small-leafed plants that help the space feel larger than it is, because your eyes aren't alighting on large foliage.

• I've added a few slightly larger, simpler leaves so that it doesn't all feel like it is all on one level.

By using leaf forms and textures that work nicely against each other, you create a tapestry of greens that is always interesting, even when the flowers aren't there to ornament the greens.

The Perennial Layer

The perennials create seasonal change in the garden. When assembling a plant list, make sure to include perennials that provide interest right from the start of the growing season, through to the very end, and perhaps onwards through winter if you can leave the skeletal forms.

In this shady rear garden, some of the key players in the perennial layer include:

• Persicaria virginiana – a delicate foliage plant that's very well adapted to shady conditions, with a lovely cool green leaf. It's light on its feet, so other plants survive very easily underneath it.
• Melica altissima 'Alba' – a cultivar of a beautiful native grass with a very fine leaf and tiny silvery flowers. I've used this throughout the garden to bring it together and provide consistency.
• In the deep shade, a variety of ferns which form lovely sculptural cones of foliage.
• Also in the deep shade, silver-leafed Pulmonaria that reflects the light and brightens up the space.

An Exercise in Layering

As we've seen, it's always worth considering the layering, and the layers within layers, when putting a planting together. I think about the layering of perennials in much the same way as I think about the layering of trees and shrubs: you've got the high canopy, the mid canopy and the low canopy.

1. In a perennial planting, the first layer is the emergents, which grow up and out to provide the most voluminous forms. These are like exclamation marks or punctuation in a sentence.
2. The next layer is the mid-height plants that work around and amongst those key emergents.
3. In the community of low-level plants beneath those, you can play with form, texture and colour. In a naturalistic planting, these all mingle to form a community beneath the taller plants.

An example of a perennial layering system here in the shady rear garden is:

1. Eurybia divaricata – a tall, late-flowering wood aster,
2. Ferns coming up through the Eurybia,
3. Wild strawberries (Fragaria vesca) underneath the ferns,
4. Mind-your-own-business (Soleirolia soleirolii) – a tiny moss-like ground cover – underneath the wild strawberries to cover the soil,
5. Spring bulbs planted underneath all of this emerge to provide early interest.

So layering starts below ground with the bulbs, through to the ground cover at ground level, to the mingling of the mid layer and the emergents, to the shrubs, the small trees, and beyond that to the taller trees.

Planting is very much a layered exercise and by carefully considering the layering, you can provide as much interest as possible in a small space.

The Bulb Layer

Bulbs provide interest early in the year. They work in harmony with the perennials by providing fresh early season foliage, and later dropping away as the perennials come through.

• The bulb display starts in January with snowdrops (Galanthus). Snowdrops have a long season and make it feel like the garden has woken up.
• This continues right through to the start of summer. The last to flower are the Allium siculum (Nectaroscordum) in April–May, hovering above the young foliage of the emerging perennials.

I've chosen bulbs which have a long lifetime – snowdrops for example come back every year. I haven't used short-lived bulbs like ornamental tulips.

The bulbs are designed to be a reliable and enduring layer, which can provide a long season of interest throughout the first half of the year before retreating as the perennials come up around them.

Plant Directory

Amelanchier lamarckii

Magnolia grandiflora

Trachelospermum asiaticum

Parthenocissus 'Henryana'

Schizophragma integrifolia

Mahonia eurybracteata

Magnolia wilsonii

Fuchsia magellanica var. molineae

Sarcococca hookeriana

Persicaria virginiana

Melica altissima 'Alba'

Pulmonaria

Eurybia divaricata

Fragaria vesca

Soleirolia soleirolii

Galanthus

Nectroscordum siculum (aka Allium siculum)