Key to designing such planting is understanding the type of shade you have and the plants that will thrive in it. The RHS has identified five levels of shade; light shade where direct light is blocked but an open sky provides a good even level of light; partial shade, which enjoys 3 – 6 hours of direct sunlight at midsummer; dappled shade where light is filtered all day through the leaves of a tree canopy; to moderate shade with 2 – 3 hours of direct sunlight at midsummer and deep shade where a site receives 2 hours or fewer of direct sunlight.  This may seem unnecessarily detailed, but plants will thrive given their preferred soil and light conditions – ‘right plant, right place’.  

The degree of tolerance to shade varies with the plant, with some that are well adapted such as ivy, to those that will grow and flower albeit flower less with reduced light.  Soil conditions are also an essential factor.  The palette of plants that can thrive in deep dry shade such as that cast by a conifer hedge is more limited than those that will grow in moist, humus-rich soil in dappled light.

In the garden above, a Braeburn apple tree dominates and creates this area of shade.  Devoid of leaves in winter its skeletal frame adds structure and forms the upper layer of the composition.  But as the leaves shoot and start to unfurl in spring, the light levels beneath it change from light shade to dappled and then moderately shaded in summer, when it receives 3 hours of direct morning sun a day.  The image captures the garden in late-May this year.  

Beneath the tree a drift of Tellima grandiflora forms the base layer.  It overwinters well with neat rosettes of green scalloped foliage poking above the fallen apple leaves.  It is first off the blocks, clumping up early in spring before long racemes of creamy white flowers shoot skywards in early May.  Now starting to fade to pink, this shade lover will remain upright for a few months more but has started to give way to Euphorbia palustris ‘Walenburg’s Glorie’ with its contrasting rounded form of stems with fresh green leaves each marked with a distinct white midrib, above which lime green bracts are starting to form.  Normally preferring more sun, it can tolerate partial shade as the soil was mulched well in spring, but the bracts will form later with the reduced light.  Later in autumn the stems will redden, adding further interest.  These two plants form the middle layer of the composition.  To the right beneath the edge of the canopy the spikes of Digitalis lutea have almost unfurled, promising soft-yellow flowers to come in summer. 

Knautia dipsacifolia or ‘wood scabious’ forms the ground layer, its soft pinky-lilac pincushion flowers dancing on wiry stems.  This will give way to Geranium ‘Rozanne’ – already spreading and scrambling across the bed – which will flower from June to the end of September.  The former thrives in partial shade while the latter can cope with it well.