Gardening in the Shade: Using Container Gardening to Add Color

Adding color in shady areas can be difficult. When it comes to shade perennials many rely on foliage color and many flower in white. Pretty but not a lot of color. Container gardens with annuals can add a much needed color boost to shady areas. As an added bonus, container gardens can be rotated in and out of a shady area where other things might not grow.

It seems people equate shade with impatiens and for good reason. They are incredibly colorful, reliable bloomers and they grow well. I personally love them but even so I like a little variety. In the spirit of other very well loved and ubiquitous plants, rather than scrapping impatiens altogether, I suggest using them in new ways. Instead of using them alone or as the focal point, use them as fillers in your container combinations. Grow with coleus, upright fuchsias and shade tolerant grasses like King Tut.

Other plants that do well in the shade are tuberous begonias, lobelia, pansies and violas, torenia (both upright and trailing varieties) and upright or hanging fuchsias. With the exception of the upright fuchsias, most of these plants stay fairly small. Alone, they make look frail but planted together they have quite an impact. My daughter has planted container combinations using pansies, violas, torenia and lobelia outside her window for years and the effect has been outstanding. Colorful and robust.

One of the best shade plants is, of course, coleus. This plant has come a long way. I remember planting tiny little things from 4 packs that never got very big. They were colorful all right but not really that spectacular. With the Kong Series all that’s changed. Color and size! In the shade! In addition there are many, many, many varieties of coleus that do well in shade or sun in sizes from 14 inches to 3 feet.

My new favorite plant is the upright fuchsias. I’ve always been drawn to their beautiful flowers but am not generally a fan of hanging baskets so tend not to use them. However, there are several upright fuchsia varieties on the market. Most of them, including ‘Santa Claus’ and ‘Winston Churchill’ have the unique bi-color blooms traditionally associated with fuchsias. However, ‘Gartenmeister’ has a tubular bloom in a unique pink-orange color. These plants are wonderful in combinations. Be mindful, however, that these plants are grown as annuals in zone 4 so will not get to the shrub-size proportions reported in plant descriptions. In my experience, they will be 12"-24" at best.

So go ahead and add some color in your shady areas with container gardens. Use traditional shade plants in new and surprising ways while trying out new cultivars of coleus and fuchsia. With a little creativity and a few containers, your shade gardens will really shine.

Container Gardening Plants: Sweet Potato Vine

Sweet potato vine really is one of the most versatile and attractive plants to use in container gardening. It’s a vigorous grower which is a big plus in our short growing season and it comes in a variety of foliage colors and textures. Be sure to plant it with other plants of equal vigor to get the most out of this colorful foliage plant.

Sweet potato vine is an ornamental vegetable vine that does indeed grow tubers. However, they are not edible. While on the surface the tubers look similar to edible sweet potatoes, inside they are white and woody. Not poisonous, just not good. It’s still fun to dig them up in the fall though just to see how big they can get. In every container I’ve placed on soil, I’ve had the sweet potato vine grow through the drainage holes and grow tubers into the ground. Good anchor system for highly windy areas!

Sweet potato vine is grown for it’s foliage and while some flower in longer seasons, it generally will not in zone 4. There are many cultivars covering a wide range of foliage colors from chartreuse to black-burgundy. Leaf shape varies from heart-shaped to oak shaped with some lacy variations in some of the newer cultivars.

Marguerite is the most vigorous grower with heart-shaped chartreuse leaves. It blends well with most colors and brightens combinations without competing with flower color. As well as being the most vigorous, I find it to be the most compatible cultivar.

Blackie is a deep black-burgundy vine with oak shaped leaves. The leaf shape is wonderful for adding texture to a combination while the color adds drama. It blends will with pink and lighter purple shades. Some of my favorite plants to pair with this are either a plum vein petunia or Supertunia Bubblegum petunia. I love the juxtaposition of light colored flowers with the dark foliage. Stunning!

Other well-known (i.e. easy to find) cultivars include Black Heart, which has dark foliage and heart-shaped leaves and Tricolor, which has green, white and fuchsia foliage and an oak shaped leaf. Lesser known cultivars are the Sweet Caroline series which has red or bronze foliage.

New cultivars in either the Sidekick or Chillin’ lines offer these same colors and leaf shapes with a more compact growth habit. In many cases, these varieties will be better suited to smaller container gardens. However, be aware that true trailing action on these varieties won’t happen until late summer. Take this into account when you plant your combinations to get the look you want. That said, I used Sidekick Black Heart in a combo this summer and was very pleased with the result. It did vine less but was actually an advantage given the size of container that I used. It is also less likely to take over other plants.

Sweet potato vine also holds up fairly well to drought and is heat tolerant. It will wilt in extremely dry conditions but bounces back like a champ. This is a full sun plant but will grow in part sun as well. With this kind of flexibility and all the colors and textures available in sweet potato vine, chances are you’ll find one (or two, or three) that works for your container gardens.

Container Garden Idea: Creating Height

Container Trellis
Full Sun
1 Marguerite sweet potato vine
2 lavender trailing verbena
1 white bacopa*

*The picture shows two bacopa but on subsequent plantings I used just one to give all plants maximum growth space for the season.

I love the colors in this combination! And it is a combination that looks great from planting through fall. Each of the plants is a vigorous grower so does very well together. It’s also a good example of how to use an accessory in a container.

As you can see, I had a rock wall to contend with. I didn’t want the wall covered but any container I put in that area seemed too short for the space. I needed height for a good proportion. Small trellises seemed like a good solution.

But what to grow up the trellis? I tried morning glory and moon flower originally and found they didn’t do well because of the heat and sun exposure in this location. It’s on the west side on a concrete sidewalk against a rock wall, a less than ideal growing condition. I couldn’t keep those plants watered well enough to get them established. Ipomoea vines generally don’t like to be transplanted. Other vigorous vines were the just the wrong color and I am picky about color.

My original design started with the lavender verbena and the Marguerite sweet potato vine. I love chartreuse and purple shades together. I couldn’t find a vine to fit in with my scheme when someone suggested growing the sweet potato vine up the trellis rather than using it as my trailing element. Perfect solution. Marguerite is the most vigorous of the sweet potato vines and while it’s not a traditional trellis plant, it will grow upwards easily enough with just a few garden ties.

Choosing a replacement trailing plant proved much easier than finding a vine for the focal point. White bacopa is another vigorous grower that holds its own with both the verbena and the sweet potato vine. The color scheme is fairly simple with just lavender and white flowers and chartreuse foliage but I think the effect is quite stunning.

Because these three plants are such vigorous growers, they will need a larger container in order to grow well. I recommend 18" or larger. This combination also held up quite well in the extreme heat and sun conditions. In case of drought (common in my gardening style), all of these plants rebounded very well. The verbena will bloom profusely throughout the summer if deadheaded occasionally. I always took the opportunity to pinch off a few spent blooms while watering and was rewarded handsomely for this minimal effort.

Using Accessories in Container Gardens

Container gardens don’t need to be limited to being just a pot with flowers in it. You can use the same accessories in containers that you use in a traditional garden. These include trellises, tuteurs or obelisks, stakes and art. Use these sort of accessories to add height, interest, texture or color to your container garden.

Trellises, tuteurs and obelisks all serve the same function in supporting vining plants. The difference in these structures is in the shape and in what circumstances you would use each of them.

Trellises are flat, vertical structures for vining plants to grow on. The can be as simple as wood lattice or more elaborate decorative designs made from a variety of metals. Trellises are best used in containers that are along a wall or fence. The trellis provides a vertical element as well as adds more interest to a container combination.

Tuteurs and obelisks are essentially a 3-D trellis. They can be round, square or pyramidal and made from wood, bamboo or more decorative metal pieces. Many have finials or other decorative embellishments at the top which adds another element of interest to a container. The advantage to tuteurs and obelisks is that plants can either grow on the outside of the structure or grow from the inside. Whether to grow from the outside or inside will depend on the plant you are using and the look you are going for.

The most important thing when using accessories in container gardens is proportion. The container and the accessory need to be of corresponding size. Obviously, large trellises aren’t going to fit in small containers but neither should you put too small a trellis in a large container.

Also consider the weight of the structure you are using with the container. Using a heavy metal tuteur in a plastic container is not going to hold up to wind. Generally speaking, metal structures will do better in metal, concrete or ceramic containers. They have enough weight to counterbalance the structure. Wood or bamboo structures can go in lighter weight containers such as plastic or fiber mache.

Using these structures will enable you to use plants such as sweet pea, morning glory, cypress vine and black-eyed Susan vine in your container garden designs. In using tuteurs and obelisks you can get plants that traditionally grow down such as sweet potato vine to grow up with very little effort.

You can also use decorative stakes or smaller pieces of art to add whimsy and interest to your container flower gardens. Don’t limit yourself by your garden’s size. If it works in a traditional garden, you can make it work in a container garden as well.