Top 3 summer bedding plants for shade
You will find trays of bedding plants in garden centres come May and June, embraced for the immediacy they can bring, as well as the joy you can have by creating pots of colour, form and texture.
Bred to bring summer pizazz to your window boxes, pots and borders, bedding plants are also very useful for filling gaps. For example, to replace a plant that didn’t make it through the winter or for underplanting roses and other shrubs.
You can grow bedding plants as annuals from seed, in multi-sown trays at the garden centre, or via mail order as plug plants that can either be grown on or planted out when the weather is warm enough.
If you have a dark or shady spot in your garden to fill, there are some beautiful bedding plants that will tolerate low-light conditions. To get you started, here are three summer bedding plants for shade:
Impatiens
Also known as busy lizzies, these tropical plants are one of the most popular summer bedding plants, beloved for their brilliantly coloured flowers from pure white through to carmine pinks and reds and lush foliage. Native to tropical rainforests, impatiens are shade-tolerant, so are great for brightening up dark corners. In recent years, they’ve been badly affected by fungal disease, particularly in cooler damp summers. Once affected, there is no coming back and the plants simply have to be destroyed.
Recent breeding has come up with some tougher, disease-resistant hybrids, such as impatiens beacon, so they are back on the bedding menu. However, it's important not to overwater and to remove spent flowers and yellowing leaves regularly to avoid creating conditions for fungal diseases to flourish. They look great planted as a single display either in one or multiple colours.
Bacopa
A great filler that copes with semi-shade and sun, the pretty clouds of bacopa's pure white flowers look good with many other seasonal plants. Go for a classic combination with pink and blue petunias or osteospermums for a sunnier spot, or an elegant all-white combination, mixing bacopa ‘Snowtopia’ in a container or plant in smaller single pots to display alongside other summer annuals. There are other colours too, such as bacopa 'Double Lavender'.
Fuchsia
A plant that has strayed from its more subtle shrubby origins into the garish world of summer baskets and containers, bedding fuchsias are great performers and tick lots of boxes with richly coloured blooms and often a good tumbling habit. Louder and frillier than many of their hardy cousins, many are considered half-hardy so they can be kept over winter in a sheltered spot indoors and might last a couple of seasons. 'Pink Elephant' is wonderfully Barbara Cartland with salmon pink double flowers, or for a more classic look, try the single, two-tone blooms of 'Bella Nora' or 'Bella Nikita'.
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