How to Garden in Sun Or Shade

Sun vs Shade

Taking time to choose the right plants for specific conditions in your garden will greatly improve your garden's overall look and feel, and will cut down on overall maintenance and watering requirements.

Determine which areas of your yard receive a lot of sun, or tend to be more shady. Especially note the times of day, and how long each area remains in shade or how many hours of sun it receives. Try to select plants that fit your gardens natural growing conditions.

The amount of sun an area receives is measured in hours. For instance, a "full sun" area would receive 6 or more hours of direct sunlight per day.

Partial sun would be about 4 hours of sun per day. Also, there is a difference between morning sun and afternoon sun. Morning sun areas tend to provide a cooler environment, whereas afternoon sun is generally much hotter.

Filtered sun is an area with both sun and shade in roughly equal amounts. An example would be areas beneath large trees that have open canopies.

Partial shade, will receive about 1 to 3 hours of sunlight per day.

Full shade, are areas of your garden that never receive any direct sunlight. The north side of fences or walls, or areas beneath trees with heavy or dense canopies would be considered full shade areas.

Each plant, available at your local garden center or nursery, will have a tag that describes the basic growing and care requirements for that particular plant.

Most often, the plant's tag will include plant name and variety, such as: Shasta Daisy - Alaska. The type of plant: Perennial. Height at maturity: 2' to 4' tall. Width at maturity: 18" to 24" wide. and Spacing: 18" to 24" apart. Spacing, is the recommended distance between plants when you first plant them in the ground, taking into account the eventual size at maturity.

Tip: Spacing plants a little closer together than recommended at the time of planting, will tend to give a more immediate fullness to your garden, as well as when the garden matures. This technique works well with flowering plants, such as annuals and perennials.

The plant tag will also include the light requirements, such as "full sun" for the Shasta Daisy, or "partial shade" for plants that require shade during the hottest part of the day.

Tip: In general, if the light requirements listed for a plant contain the word "sun" (i.e., "full sun", "partial sun", etc.), the plant requires some amount of direct sunlight per day. If the light requirement uses the term "shade" (i.e., "light shade", "full shade", etc.), then it would be a shade-loving plant.

There are many plants available today that will accept a wide range of growing conditions. Your local nursery will have plant types and varieties that are perfectly suited for your region's growing conditions.