The Shady Nook - Designing a Garden for Partial Shade

Shade gardening used to be considered a challenge. Thankfully, there's been an explosion of shade perennials on the market and your shade garden can be as colorful and varied as any full sun border. Beautiful foliage, like bronzy or caramel coral bells and puckered, variegated Solomon's Seal and blue Hosta make the need for flowers incidental. But you'll have a hard time not indulging in astilbe, foam flowers and giant Cimicifuga.

If you've never created a garden before, here's a pictorial primer of how other's have gone about the process. And if you're brand new to gardening, you might want to review some gardening basics, so you'll know what you're in for.