When we lived in Tennessee and built our campgrounds and Bed and Breakfast we were doing it on 25 wooded acres on a mountain next to a state forest and that made for a lot of shade.
I had cleared out a small spot for creating my spiritual Zen garden, which did fairly well, but mostly I had to consider shade loving plants and fast growing evergreens that did well in the shade also.
For those of you who are organic gardeners with very little patches of land that get sun or those who will be considering landscaping on shady lots then fast growing evergreens.
Keep those patches of sun for your organic vegetable gardens, but check out some really great evergreens and rocks to create artistic gardening oasis.
Evergreens look great in the winter as their foliage brighten our winter landscapes and one of the things I like about them is that they can be used as windbreaks around one's home to save on fuel bills.
If you plant evergreen yews around your foundation then keep them pruned to window bottom height and they will hide your home's foundation as well as looking nice.
Choose cedars, hemlocks and cypress trees for successful shade plantings, plus the deer do not like them. Don't forget broad leaf evergreens, such as azaleas, pieris, laurels, leucothoe and rhododendrons, too.
Colorado blue spruce trees will grow in zones 3 to 7 and this is one tree that can be set out in a sunny or partially sunny area of your lot.
For those who want flowers then consider the flowering Dogwood which does really well in the shade or wooded area of your property. Though not an evergreen it should be considered as a great tree to plant on the shady or wooded edges of your property or in an area near you home that will be in the shade most of the day.
Consider Northern White Cedar Trees as they are fast growing and you can also consider the Atlantic White Cedar tree.
The Canadian hemlock tree are among the slower growing, but longer living types of evergreens and have a lovely conical or pyramid shape growing to heights of eighty feet or more and spreading from twenty five to thirty feet in diameter.
"Tread the Earth Lightly" and in the meantime… May your day be filled with…Peace, Light and Love,
Author's note: This article was originally written for GreenThumbArticles.com
