What Are Low Sunlight Flowering Plants?

Graceful columbine thrives in low-sunlight areas.purple columbine flowers image by Lijuan Guo from Fotolia.com

Coping with low sunlight is a common part of gardening. Trees, fences and other permanent landscape features all cast shadows that limit or block the sun’s rays. These shady spots, however, can still provide garden color and interest. Many flowering plants are quite at home in low-sunlight situations, says associate professor Susan Wilson Hamilton and Nikki Anderson Bell of the University of Tennessee’s Department of Ornamental Horticulture and Landscape Design.

Ageratum 'Blue Horizon'

Named a Missouri Botanical Garden Plant of Merit, floss flower (Ageratum houstonianum) ‘Blue Horizon’ is an Aster family annual. Standing up to 30 inches high and 18 inches wide, it has erect stems with round, hairy pale-green leaves. From June until the first autumn frost, Blue Horizon has flat clusters of fluffy, lavender or blue-violet blooms. Attractive in partially shady borders, it likes fertile, consistently moist well-drained soil. Plants in excessively shady spots will flower less. Afternoon shade is best where summers are hot.

While coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides) does have spikes of blue or white summer blooms, its ornamental value comes from brilliantly colored foliage. This shade lover acts as a perennial where winter temperatures remain above 30 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Missouri Botanical Garden. Elsewhere, it’s grown as an annual. Numerous coleus cultivars are available in different sizes, from 6 to 36 inches high. All of them have multi-colored leaves with edgings or patterns in green, chartreuse, orange, peach, red, burgundy, cream and yellow. Leaves may be toothed or ruffled. Although coleus grows in full shade, plants in partial shade will have a denser, more compact form. The plants like loose, moist fertile soil.

Scarlet sage (Salvia splendens), like coleus, is hardy to 30 degrees F. Standing up to 2 feet high and 18 inches wide, this mint family plant forms clumps of dark green leaves with upright stems. Its vivid, red tubular flowers bloom from June until frost, according to the Missouri Botanical Garden. Dwarf salvia cultivars with blue, pink, orange and other flower colors are commercially available. The smaller varieties are attractive pot and edging plants. Salvias are happy in partial shade and well-drained, moist soil.

Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) has a delicate, airy appearance that belies its toughness. A low-sunlight-tolerant perennial hardy to minus 40 degrees F, it has slender-stalked clumps of lobed, blue-green leaves up to 18 inches high and 2 feet wide. Its deep blue spring flowers, with curving sepals (protective outer petals) and nectar-filled spurs, attract humming birds, according to the Missouri Botanical Garden. Columbine cultivars with yellow, pink, red white, purple and bi-colored flowers are available. Columbine likes partial shade and fertile, moist well-drained soil. Watering columbine regularly after it blooms prevents it from going dormant.