Putting them in the shade.

Nowhere in our garden does more effort go into forcing a quart into a pint pot than in the one corner that is shady. If Sue is never happier than when she’s furtling about in her greenhouse full of cacti, I’m at my most content surrounded by greenery in the shade. The greenhouse is her greenhouse, the shade area is my shade area.

We have one sizeable tree in the southwest corner and its shadow, along with that of a row of assorted shrubs just beyond the reach of its canopy, gives me what I refer to as my one tree woodland. The degree of shading varies greatly, the tree is deciduous and its lower branches quite high. In full leaf in mid summer, with the sun high in the sky, it cuts off a lot of light.

I see it as an opportunity to grow a range of plants that thrive in full or part shade, and what a range of plants it is. So many choice plants enjoy protection from direct sun in summer and there are plenty more that take advantage of reasonable light early in the year before the tree is in leaf. Now, in mid May, the performance has reached Act Two. The Erythroniums, wood anemones, Tulipa sylvestris, Cyclamen and bluebells are receding. They will die away completely until next year and the space they occupy is already filling with other things. Some of these will stay green until, even right through, next winter.

On a sunny day, it enjoys dappled shade; the type that is lovely to see but tricky to photograph. Here is a photo taken from a high viewpoint, looking over the top of a section of Holboellia brachyandra covered trellis that is part of the boundary.

The Holboellia is in the bottom left corner. Moving clockwise, there is a section of fence/staging/storage, then my two stacked IBC’s, full of water and disguised with a home-made bamboo screen. My miniscule shed is the final structure before Camellia ‘Debbie’. The tall camellia at top centre is ‘Charles Colbert’ and there is in fact a young Camellia transnokoensis between it and ‘Debbie’. Between ‘Chales Colbert’ and the bamboo is Eucryphia lucida ‘Gilt Edge’ and the trellis supports Fuchsia regia serrae on the visible section. The Bamboo is Phyllostachys aureosulcata ‘Spectabilis’, a clump former that has spread towards and away from its original location, leaving a planting gap just behind the blue pot. I just put Begonia koelzii in that very space. Across the path is Hydrangea serrata ‘Shojo’ and in front of it, Camellia grijsii. At bottom right a few flowers of Camellia japonica ‘Bob Hope are still hanging on. Only just out of shot in that corner is a 25ft Ligustrum lucidum ‘Excelsum Superbum’, which brings you back to the trellis, supporting at the right hand end a Clematis viticella. The path where it heads off past the bamboo is taking you due north.

Another angle shows all the same things, from another angle. As you can see, our neighbour’s all have proper, man-size sheds.

I kind of envisage this area as akin to a woodland clearing and planting the golden Acer bang in the middle has felt like a mistake from the time I did it. I keep telling myself that in time it will rise above the forest floor and become part of the canopy, the question is whether I will live to see it. The term “garden room” is often used to describe a more or less enclosed space within a garden, so I suppose this area qualifies for that title too. It has a different feel from the rest of the garden, smaller in scale, a little more intimate.

And so to the cast list.

• a Camellia x williamsii ‘Debbie’
• b Camellia x williamsii ‘Charles Colbert’
• c Phyllostachys aureosulcata ‘Spectabilis’
• d Camellia grijsii
• e Camellia lutchuensis
• f Camellia japonica ‘Bob Hope’
• g Holboellia brachyandra
• h Maianthemum racemosum ‘Emily Moody’
• i Maianthemum racemosum
• j Acer palmatum ‘Orange Dream’
• k Polystichum polyblepharum
• l Begonia pedatifida ‘Apalala’
• m Dicentra formosa cv. white.
• n Disporum sessile macrophyllum BSWJ4316
• o Spiraea japonica ‘Goldflame’
• p Lilium martagon ‘Guinea Gold’
• q Polygonatum x hybridum
• r Trachystemon orientale
• s Dryopteris cycadina
• t Impatiens omeiana ‘Chen Yi Red’
• u Impatiens omeiana ‘ Ice Storm’
• v Blechnum tabulare
• w Camellia ‘Fairy Blush’
• x Araiostegia parvipinnata
• y Begonia ‘Wavy Green’
• z Maianthemum bifolium

• A Lamium orvala
• B Polygonatum x hybridum ‘Betburg’
• C Jeffersonia dubia
• D Polystichum setiferum ‘Ray Smith’
• E Polygonatum odoratum ‘Purple Stem’
• F Primula vulgaris sibthorpii
• G Anemone nemorosa ‘Robinsoniana’
• H Epimedium grandiflorum ‘Lilafee’
• I Athyrium ‘Ghost’
• J Corydalis flexuosa cv.
• K Symphytum cv.
• L Disporum viridescens
• M Impatiens arguta alba
• N Eucryphia lucida ‘Gilt Edge’
• O Hydrangea serrata ‘Shojo’
• P Hosta ‘Devon Green’
• Q Impatiens stenantha
• R Deinanthe caerulea pale f.
• S Polygonatum x hybridum ‘Striatum’
• T Begonia tengchiana
• U Pachyphragma macrophyllum
• V Disporum longistylum BSWJ2859
• W Athyrium nipponicum ‘Godzilla’
• X Begonia grandis evansiana ‘Alba’
• Y Epipactis gigantea
• Z Melica uniflora ‘Variegata’

Add in the things I’ve missed and the things beyond and amongst the boundary planting and the things that have already gone underground and the things that haven’t come up yet and you wouldn’t be far short of as many again. It’s one of the things I love about gardening; you can take one small part, like hardy shade loving plants, and you will never get to the bottom of it.

I think it’s fair to say that our garden visitors will see more in our small garden, tucked away in the middle of a housing estate, than they will find in many gardens fifty times as large.