Find the best Perennials that Flower in the Shade. Brighten up low-light gardens with these easy and colorful plants.
Planting for colour in the shade—especially Perennials that Flower in the Shade—can be tricky. That’s why, as a gardener, you’ll want to focus on texture and interesting foliage rather than relying only on flowers. A great example is coral bells (Heuchera). You’ll love their wide range of leaf colours, from deep purples to bright limes. Japanese maples also bring drama to shady spots with their fiery reds and finely cut leaves.
Don’t forget hostas—they’re a must-have in any shade garden. You can choose from thousands of shapes, sizes, and leaf patterns. For a real pop of colour, try ‘Designer Genes’ from Loblaws—a bold chartreuse hosta with rich rhubarb-red stems that can spread up to 60 centimetres.
To brighten even the darkest corner, pair white and green variegated hostas together. While they do bloom, you’ll find that their foliage often steals the show. Still, if you’re on a mission to find flowers that truly light up the shade—not just the leaves—your search may be a bit more challenging, but not impossible.
Perennials that Flower in the Shade
1. Yellow waxbells (Kirengeshoma palmata)
An exotic-looking mound of maple-shaped leaves with oval-shaped buds developing at the top of the upright stems, growing into late-blooming trumpet-shaped yellow flowers.
2. Fothergilla (Fothergilla major ‘Mount Airy’)
Fothergilla (Fothergilla major ‘Mount Airy’) has fragrant white bottlebrush flowers and blue-green foliage. The plant grows to 1.5 metres. Keep in mind that the fothergilla likes bright shade, meaning shade that is not too dense.
3. Hellebore ‘Anna’s Red’
This is a new variety of Lenten Rose. The red flowers face up instead of downward like the old-fashioned varieties. For multi-season interest, the plant has mottled foliage, which provides appeal long after the flowers have faded.
4. Brunnera (Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’)
Brunnera, specifically Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’, provides a cloud of blue forget-me-not flowers in springtime, then offers its heart-shaped silver foliage in the garden the rest of the summer.
5. Astilbes
Astilbes are ideal for shade gardens. Their fern-like foliage adds interest all summer, right through the fall. The flowers, perched on airy plumes, bloom in shades of reds, purples, pinks, and whites, and retain their form even after their color fades. The new ‘Rock and Roll’ variety, which has white flowers from June through July and grows 50 centimetres tall and 40 centimetres wide.
6. Hydrangeas
Hydrangeas are a must-have, universal favourite. They now come in various sizes, in pinks, blues, or the classic white. A new introduction called ‘Bobo’ produces so many white blooms that you can’t see the foliage.
7. Cimicifuga simplex ‘Hillside Black Beauty’
Also known as black snakeroot or black bugbane, ‘Hillside Black Beauty’ features arching spikes of fragrant, pale-pink flowers above a clump of lacy, purple-black foliage in early fall.
8. Japanese anemones
One of the few shade-loving plants that bloom in the fall is the Japanese anemone (Anemone x hybrid ‘Honorine Jobert’), with its tall, single white flowers that provide a showy display from August through October. These can grow up to 120 centimetres and can spread if the conditions are right.
9. Giant goat’s beard (Aruncus dioicus)
Giant goat’s beard is also one of my favourites. It can grow 120 to 180 centimetres and has a spectacular display of creamy-white plumes from June through July.
10. Foamflowers
The foamflower (Tiarella) comes in many varieties and has delicate spikes of fragrant, soft-pink or white flowers in the late spring and summer, with large, deeply cut leaves.
