Demystifying the Native Shade Garden

Episode Introduction

In today's episode, Demystifying the Native Shade Garden, we go over why we don't need to rely on exotics for these spaces and some native Nebraska plant choices you can inject for some habitat value and beauty in low light areas.

Host Stephanie Barelman

Stephanie Barelman is the founder of the Bellevue Native Plant Society, a freelance garden designer under the moniker Victory Cottage Gardens, and host of the Plant Native Nebraska Podcast.

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Episode Content

Go back and catch up on old episodes

-PLEASE PLEASE listen to Episode 1 if you haven't already which gives you a primer on what native plants even are, link here

Don't use exotic standbys for shade, go native!

Does the American garden need more hydrangeas, hostas, exotic ferns, lamium, astilbe, lily of the valley? No! While this is basically all that was available to the consumer for decades, it is not the truth (at all!) of what can be grown in totality here in the Midwest.

Native plant gardens create habitat!

Say it with us: back-yard-con-serv-ation.

Exotic plants are:

• expensive- require teams to engineer and zhuzh
• freakishly small- but seriously why is everything 2 feet or under
• alien in terms of form and color- double coneflowers? all the colors of the rainbow? yeah, probably not good for pollinators.

WHAT YOU CAN PLANT IN FULL SHADE (not a complete list, just ideas people)

• Snakeroot- wild and delicate (just like my daughter,) white blooms, found in the wild virtually everywhere here
• American Columbine- sweet little red and yellow bell shaped flowers, attracts hummingbirds
• poke milkweed- yes, a shade milkweed for monarchs!
• sweet Joe pye- tall, gorgeous, fragrant, unusual (like my husband)
• wild blue phlox divaricata- amazing blue in nature, graceful, looks good everywhere
• the Solomon's- (Solomon's seal, Solomon's plume, starry Solomon's plume) tasteful, traditional looking, will not offend your nana's sensibilities
• wild garlic- sweet and unassuming native allium, allium canadense
• goldenrods- zig zag goldenrod, elm leaf goldenrod, regionally native blue stemmed goldenrod; at the end of the day you really can't have too many goldenrods
• asters- heart leaf aster(you really won't regret planting this one,) Drummond's aster
• mint- wild...