Category: Woodlanders
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Asarum caudatum ‘Album’
This North American woodlander has become one of my favourite ground cover plants for moist shade. Its lovely kidney shaped leaves cover the ground with a weed suppressing mat year round and in only a couple of years it has covered about 2 square metres. It grows to about 30cms. tall and falling leaves drop
Stephen Ryan
Syneilesis aconitifolia
I first met this plant at Crug Farm Nursery in Wales and even without flowers or even any idea into what family it belonged I was smitten. It is an Asian woodlander and I still find it hard to believe that it is a daisy! the leaves when they first erupt from the ground look
Stephen Ryan
Vancouveria hexandra
This dainty little woodland perennial from North America is surprisingly hardy in a slightly shaded aspect,coping with some dry in summer and in my garden it will burn off and come again when the soil is remoistened if I inadvertently miss watering it, not that I recommend such slack behaviour! It has pale green foliage
Stephen Ryan
Fessia grielhuberi
Until just a few moments ago when I was about to blog this plant I would have done so under the name Scilla greilhuberi but such is the flux in plant nomenclature that it doesn’t pay to assume anything! What ever this rarely grown Iranian Blue Bells botanical name is it is a great garden plant.
Stephen Ryan
Pachyphragma macrophyllum
This woodland perennial has become one of my favourites. In late winter and spring its newly erupting leaves surround the clusters of pristine white flowers and as it builds into sizable drifts via self-seeding it is very telling in the deciduous tree shade afforded it in my garden. The rounded wrinkly foliage gets larger during
Stephen Ryan
Erythronium multiscapoideum
These stunning North American bulbs are called Trout Lilies amongst other common names due to the lovely mottled leaves. The only European species E. dens-canis is known as a Dog toothed Violet due to its bulbs looking somewhat like a dogs canine tooth(they however look nothing like a violet to me!) all the species of
Stephen Ryan
Ranunculus ficaria ‘Brazen Hussey’
This form of lesser Celandine was discovered by Christopher Lloyd and his head gardener of the time in a nearby wood and what a find it was! This varies from the wild form in that its heart shaped ground hugging leaves are a rich deep brown almost black which in early spring set off the
Stephen Ryan
Impatiens omeiana
Those of you that don’t have a cool shaded and moist aspect may wish to stop reading now however this plant is worth some effort to grow well and really does well in a pot in a saucer of water in the shade so really we can all grow it even if we don’t have
Stephen Ryan
Cyclamen hederifolium
There can be no more useful Genus of small plants for a shady spot than the species Cyclamen and this species has to be the best and easiest to grow. Flowering from mid February to May and then having lovely leaves through to the spring what more could you ask. I have written a full
Stephen Ryan
Matteuccia struthiopteris
If you can get beyond or even say the botanical name of the Shuttlecock Fern you are well on your way to being elected as the president of the local garden club! It is however a fabulous herbaceous fern from the Northern Hemisphere rarely grown in Australia unfortunately. Unlike evergreen ferns this plant goes through
Stephen Ryan