Fill Your Shaded Garden With A Ground Cover That'll Add Color To Your Outdoor Space

If you have a shaded garden, you may have difficulty finding ground covers, plants, or shrubs that will bloom beautifully to add color to your outdoor space. Even though most flowering annuals and many perennials worship the sun and won't bloom all that well without exposure to warm, bright sunlight, there are plenty of others that will allow you to grow a gorgeous, healthy shade garden fill of color. With just a bit of research, you can find delightful plants to fill any dim, shady spot in your yard. Such is the case with the fernleaf phacelia (Phacelia bipinnatifida).

This pretty little ground cover-like plant is a native, biennial wildflower with delicate leaves that resemble fern foliage and pretty purple flowers. The small, four or five-petaled blooms are less than an inch in diameter and will appear in spring in the plant's second year in the ground. After flowering has finished — it can last for around a month — the plant produces seeds and dies. Thankfully, the seeds will readily germinate right where they fall once the weather warms again the following year. Fernleaf phacelia grows 1 to 3 feet tall and wide (which is what makes it ground cover-like), and thrives in USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 5 through 8. Whether your garden has partial or full shade, as long as the soil is moist and preferably acidic, fernleaf phacelia should grow readily.

You can grow this ground cover by scattering seeds over the soil in your garden bed and covering them with a dusting of dirt. Alternatively, you can purchase a few seedlings from specialist sellers — if you can find them. They're typically available at nurseries from mid-spring. Fernleaf phacelia self-seeds so readily that once it is successfully growing in your garden, you can expect it to come back year after year. Dig up a few of the seedlings and plant them elsewhere in your garden. Transplanting emerging seedlings is often an easier way to multiply your collection. If you gather seedlings, you need to cold stratify them for eight weeks, making germination a little tricky.

You'll find that, in their first year, your fernleaf phacelia will be covered in soft, delicate foliage until late fall — this makes for a lovely, 5-inch-tall, bright green ground cover in a shade garden. After this, they will head back underground, lying dormant for the winter. Then, the following spring, the plants will re-emerge from the ground with flowers on tall stems — the small purple-blue blooms are a magnet for native bees (primarily), butterflies, and other pollinators visiting your garden. If you want to keep the native theme going, another wildflower that grows perfectly in a shady yard or garden is twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla). Or pair your fernleaf phacelia with other shade-loving plant combos that make woodland borders glow: variegated hostas and sweet woodruff, brunnera and compact astilbes, or Lenten roses and grape hyacinths. The colorful foliage and flowers will brighten even the dimmest of yards.