Shaded Areas

What gardener with a heart and soul could resist the spring flowers of Corydalis, whose winged petals with upswept spurs suggest a flight of elfin butterflies. These woodland ephemerals are highly useful at the front of the border, with miniature bulbs such as crocus, muscari or scillas.

Ten years back coleus were gaudy relics from Grandmother's generation, but now coleus are back and teetering on the cutting edge. “Wizard Sunset” is one of the softer colours from the Wizard series, with heart-shaped leaves in beautiful shades of bronze - apricot. Excellent in full sun.

Coleus have been perfected, the new varieties have colours that intensify in sun, but can also thrive in shade. “Coral Sunrise” is an excellent example of the new developments, The beautiful coral pink heart-shaped leaves have neatly serrated edges, with shades of olive and intense bright green margins.

Coleus 'Coral Candy' features a new plant form - narrow, serrated leaves that gracefully drape down the mounded plants. The first seed raised coleus to ever win the coveted AAS Winner designation - AAS Judges noted that this beautiful variety holds its colour well, even when grown in full sun and holds up nicely in the autumn.

The neatest Coleus to come along in quite a while, 'Chocolate Mint' offers rich cocoa coloured foliage with a mint-green scalloped edge. A 'Premium Sun' variety, they perform at their best in a position of full sun and are quite heat and drought tolerant outdoors. The leaves are very uniform, turn them over and they gleam bright mint. Scrumptious!

This wonderful Victorian type coleus ‘Black Dragon’ forms a riot of rumpled leaves in velvety purplish black leaves, each bordered by frilly edges. The ruby red centres are sometimes flecked with violet or pink. Easy to grow from seed, they will show their first colours in as little as two weeks.

Coleus 'Kong Scarlet' has huge leaves that are dark red with veins trailing out to chartreuse edges. Coleus colours become more vibrant when they get more shade. This is very unusual behaviour, and explains why Coleus is a popular choice for under-the-tree plantings and shade-of-the-building gardens.

Featuring huge leaves that are coral in the centre and edged in bright green, Coleus 'Kong Salmon-Pink' is a 'Premium Shade' variety, that are great for large containers and mass plantings, performing best and showing the most intense colour in full shade, they also work well for indoor plant programs. It's hard to go wrong with this plant.

Coleus has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. The new breeding has taken a handful of series and exploded them into hundreds of wild and crazy types of colours and forms. Coleus 'Kong Rose' has huge leaves that are rose in the center, with a band of burgundy that flows out to chartreuse edges.

Grown for its outstanding foliage colours, the Kong series of coleus boasts extremely large leaves with irregular edges, each leaf is easily as big as your palm, and probably twice as large as the next biggest Coleus you can buy. 'Kong Red' displays a broad vein of brilliant red down the centre of each leaf.

Over the past few years, the new breeding of Coleus has exploded them into hundreds of wild and crazy types of colours and forms. Overwhelmingly the favourite is the Kong series for its sheer presence, each leaf is easily as big as your palm, and probably twice as large as the next biggest Coleus you can buy.

Actaea simplex 'Atropurpurea' is an exceptionally beautiful selection, valued for its large Astilbe-like leaves of purple black. Its dark hue makes a wonderful backdrop for colourful foliage and flowering shade plants. In late summer, long, fluffy spires in pale pinkish-white, rise above the dark foliage.

Actaea cordifolia comes into its own late in the season, when multiple stiff and stout stems emerge from the base of the plant. It displays impressive long racemes of chalky-white blooms that are composed of numerous, tiny individual star-like, fragrant flowers.

Camomile is a most useful plant. It can be used to make beautiful lawns and raised beds, an infusion of the plant is an ideal family remedy, calming and sedative, perfect for restlessness or travel sickness, while for gardeners the tea is effective as a spray to prevent 'damping-off' of seedlings

Canna indica is a superb tall strain with gorgeous foliage and bright vermilion red blooms. Growing to around 150cm tall, the wide banana-like leaves add a tropical feel to the garden. They are ideal to plant at the back of a border where they are in full sun, or to add colour to a partly shady area.

Be prepared to get your funk on. The Funky Begonia has entered the dance floor, and she's ready to boogie all summer long. Huge, voluptuous flowers with superior heat tolerance and semi-trailing yet dense, sturdy growth habit, in six fantastic colours – Light Pink, Bright Pink, Orange, Red, Scarlet and White.

Elegant cascades of vivid, elongated flowers with large, arrow-shaped, neatly serrated, green leaves. Begonia boliviensis ‘F1 Sun Cities Mixed’ feature the three ‘Sun Cities’ of the USA: ‘San Francisco’ has slmon-pink blooms, ‘Santa Barbara’ features white blooms and ‘Santa Cruz’, fiery red blooms

Asperula orientalis, commonly known as Blue Woodruff is a charming little plant. A versatile and easy to grow annual which forms spreading mounds of airy foliage smothered in sweetly scented, clusters of tubular, sky-blue flowers.

Native to Canada and the US in all states east of the Rockies, this superb variety is quite unlike the usual Aquilegia. Growing just twelve to eighteen inches tall, with dark-green foliage and eye-catching, scarlet and lemon-yellow flowers which hang like drifts of softly illuminated lanterns.

Aquilegia atrata is a beautiful free flowering species that is native to the alpine meadows and forest clearings of Switzerland and Northern Europe. With many branching stems of deepest coloured, almost black flowers. This is an outstanding, highly sought species that would be a showstopper in any garden.