Native Plant Shade Garden

A native plant shade garden is of special interest to visit in early spring through early summer. In March and early April, before the leaves appear on the trees, spring ephemerals like Virginia bluebells, bloodroot, and trout lily appear in the garden. After flowering and producing seeds, these plants disappear until the next spring.

To learn more about natives and other resources: click here.

In April and early May, trilliums emerge and bloom including red trillium and great white trillium. Twinleaf, Mayapple, wild blue phlox, golden groundsel, and Canadian anemone are in flower. The fronds of ferns are emerging from the ground in May. The native shade garden has a beautiful collection of maidenhair and ostrich ferns.

In May and June, the early summer flowering plants of interest are golden Alexander and foam flowers.

Flowering activity in the native shade garden slows as summer approaches. Indian pink and scarlet beebalm put on a nice display of flowers in June and July. Black cohosh has a tall white flower spike in July.

The plants in our garden have some interesting fruits. Jack-in-the-pulpit produces a cluster of berries that turn red by late August into September. The fruit of goldenseal ripens in July as a bright red berry. The fruit of the strawberry bush is hot pink and orange. It is ripe by late summer into early fall. Spikenard produces a beautiful cluster of purple berries in August-September.

The garden includes native plants that are alternatives to the non-native Japanese pachysandra groundcover. Allegheny spurge, wild ginger, golden groundsel, and foamflower are native alternatives.

For a detailed list of plants in the Native Plant Shade Garden and their characteristics, click here.