This is a blog about gardens in the shade. You will meet a few plants that are happy in the shade and see a new garden I’m making. You will visit a grand garden at Lake Como and read about a shady garden from my childhood.

From next week onwards my blogs will be shorter and published weekly. Usually on a Sunday. Now and again there’ll be a longer blog when I visit a particularly brilliant garden.

My interest in shade plants, all began with Margery Fish. I found her book ‘Gardening In The Shade’ at a secondhand book sale. It was first published in 1964; my book is a weathered 1983 edition. It gave me the perfect excuse to start finding plants for my newly extended front garden, a large part of which is in full or partial-shade.

Of course I knew that ferns like the shade, but I already had a fernery. I wanted different sorts of plants, the sort of plants that Margery Fish talked about in her book.

‘Some people think that to own a shady garden should be a matter for sympathy,’ says Margery Fish. ‘But I always feel it is one for envy. Anyone with a garden without shade knows how difficult it is to grow many plants, for you cannot make shade overnight, but it is usually possible to contrive sunny spots in the shadiest garden.’

My front garden has been an unloved space for the last 10 years. It used to be where my son practiced football, so the plants had to be tough. The garden sits beside a noisy road and a busy footpath. Now and again I’ve felt inspired and planted a few plants (usually to gain some privacy), but then I forget about them.

The photo above and the ones below show you the shady part of my front garden, which has been the hardest to fill with plants. I have two big trees: a kowhai and a karo, a small but ever increasing camellia and lots of shrubs.

‘Trees are the making of a good garden; they give grace and beauty and a feeling of stability. If I had to choose between a sunny and a shady garden I would choose the shady one every time, not only for its peace and timelessness but also for the plants that can be grown in it. It seems to me that they are often more interesting and more beautiful than those that like to bask in the sun,’ says Margery Fish.

In the photo above you can see most of my new shade loving plants.

‘The reason why many people fail to grow good plants in the shade is, I think, that not enough trouble is taken with the soil.’ So says Margery Fish. And by ‘trouble’ she means using lots of compost and mulch so that plants get enough nutrients and water, especially if there are big trees nearby with thirsty roots.

My new garden was an extension of my old garden, which was thin and mean in its proportions. I’m an impatient gardener. I built the new garden straight onto the lawn. I’ve done it this way many times before, and I pay for my hastiness later. Sooner or later the weeds break through. The solution is to plant densely and mulch thickly. Eventually the weeds give up, or at least become manageable.

I started my garden by laying down thick layers of newspaper and cardboard on top of the lawn. Then I dumped barrow loads of compost/soil, bought from a landscape supplier, onto the newspaper and spread it out.

Unfortunately I ran out of soil when I got to the shady section of the garden so I had to finish off the job with mulch. I had a big pile of it lying around from the time my oak tree was pruned. I knew I couldn’t plant straight into the mulch so I dug in the fermented remains of my Bokashi Bins and left it for a few months. When it came to digging in the new plants I used lots of compost.

I planted out the sunny part of the new garden, in autumn, with anything I could find - divided daylilies, geraniums and zebra grass from other parts of the garden; seedlings I’d grown - bishops flower, orlaya and ornamental carrot; several artichokes moved from the flower border; and lavender cuttings. It was a random selection of plants, not what I wanted growing there in the long term. I’m aiming for a more leafy exotic look but I figure I can change things once the garden is established (I don’t want bare soil). Then again, I might like the plants once they start growing and filling out the space. I’m a fan of happy accidents.

‘Then there is the mystery. The gardens that are remembered are those that lure you on. No one wants to linger in a garden that has no surprises and if the whole garden can be seen at once there is a tendency to pay less attention to its treasures than if they were discovered in unexpected places under trees, behind walls and round corners,’ says Margery Fish.

Rosa ‘Veilchenblau’, climbing rose, 1909. — *Rosa* ‘Veilchenblau’, climbing rose, 1909.

I was surprised to find that a number of roses are happy to grow in the shade or semi-shade, like my climbing rose above. I planted this one up by the front fence.

Clianthus puniceus, Kaka Beak. — *Clianthus puniceus,* Kaka Beak.

Macleaya cordata, Plume poppy. — *Macleaya cordata,* Plume poppy.

I bought 3 Plume Poppies from a garden on the Wairappa Garden Tour.

A selection of 3 different begonias that grow under trees.

Hydrangea quercifolia ‘Pee Wee’. — *Hydrangea quercifolia* ‘Pee Wee’.

Ligularia reniformis ‘Tractor Seat ‘. — *Ligularia reniformis* ‘Tractor Seat ‘.

The 2 Ligularia dentata ‘Britt-Marie Crawford’ plants and the Actaea ‘Black Negligee’ were both moved from a sunny garden to this one. They both struggled with 6 hours of full sun each summer. They seem a lot happier here in the shade.

Astilbe x Arendsii ‘Diamante’. — *Astilbe x Arendsii* ‘Diamante’.

An unknown azalea and Brachyglottis greyi

My nana loved azaleas, they were one of her favourite plants. They seem to have fallen out of favour. The red azalea in the photos was planted by previous owners. I look forward to it flowering every year. It brings colour to a very shady corner. I plan to introduce a few more azaleas in the shade garden once I’ve done some research on them.

The first shade garden I remember visiting belonged to a lady called Miss Wright. She was my nana's neighbour. They both lived at Waihi Beach, which is where the Bay of Plenty ends and Coromandel Peninsula starts. Both of them were passionate gardeners - both retired and living alone.

Nana had a sunny garden. She loved flowers. Her garden was modelled on English cottage gardens - with a Margery Fish approach (more of that another time). Miss Wright had a shady garden. She loved shrubs. Getting to Miss Wright's garden was an adventure. At least getting to it from my nana's place. You had to navigate your way down a short steep slope (a weed covered sandhill). Nana had cut out a few footsteps, which, if used in combination with gripping clumps of weeds and long grass, allowed a dignified descent. At the bottom was a small stream (a glorified drainage ditch). A wobbly plank was placed across this and had to be crossed. You pushed through some overhanging branches and there you were in the gloomiest most magical garden.

The paths were narrow and muddy. The air smelt different. It smelt of dead plants and earth and dampness. The trees were tall and their thin knobbly branches seemed to be clawing at you as you passed. It was the middle of summer in my nana’s garden but it was winter in Miss Wright’s.

Miss Wright’s garden was built on a damp low-lying piece of sandy ground. She created a wild looking forest out of camellias, rhododendrons and other woodland shrubs. It was a jungle of dark green with the occasional bright flower. More often than not, the flowers were lying in the mud or on the thick carpet of dead leaves under the trees. Her garden excited and scared me. It made me think of bad goblins, wicked witches and places where children disappeared.

Miss Wright’s garden has gone now. Her section was sold and subdivided. The garden was chopped down and replaced with a small house and kikuyu grass.

At the end of June I was holidaying at Lake Como with my family. One morning we took a ferry from Lenno, where we were staying, and headed south. I got off at the Villa Carlotta and my husband and son carried on to Bellagio, hoping to bump into George Clooney. They mocked my decision to visit a garden feeling certain that they would have a more exciting time. But, as things turned out, they wished they’d gone to the garden. It was hot. The kind of hot that makes every small physical task an ordeal. They battled tiny streets and tiny shops filled to bursting with throngs of sweating tourists. My son couldn’t find anything to buy. He was in the market for trashy souvenirs and anything football related. Bellagio was too exclusive for that sort of tat. I, on the other hand, found shade and tranquility and acres of space.

Luckily for me the gardens at the Villa Carlotta were huge and absorbed a great many people. Also, the hilly nature of the terrain meant that the very old and the very unfit kept to the tame lower terraces leaving me to venture forth alone into the wild.

Even before I set foot in the gardens of the Villa Carlotta I knew it was going to be a place that had a dark side.

The Villa Carlotta was named after the daughter of Princess Marianne of Nassau, who was given the villa as a gift when she married Georg 2nd of Saxen-Meiningen in 1843. More about Georg in a moment.

The original garden at the Villa Carlotta was owned by the Clerici family and was created in 1690 in the baroque style. The front entrance, with its terraces, staircases, water features and statuary remains unchanged.

Villa Carlotta was bought in 1801 by a lawyer and politician called Gian Battista Sommariva, who was said to be ambitious and unscrupulous. His archenemy lived in a villa on the opposite shore, in Bellagio. Gian Battista Sommariva made sure his house, garden and art collection were the bigger and better of the two. He freed up the formal structure of the flower beds that lay beyond the front terraces. He introduced lots of winding paths and integrated the farm and orchard into the garden structure, which was the fashion of the times - recreational meets utilitarian and becomes a glorious pastoral idyl.

This is the entrance to the Villa Carlotta. These are the original steps water features and statues dating back to the late 1600s

I only had time to see the gardens so I missed the villa completely. Apparently it has an excellent 19th century art collection and was a destination when Europeans were doing their ‘Grand Tour’, but I will never know. There was a time when I would’ve chosen the art over the gardens but now it’s the other way round. The garden is the art.

If you look closely you can see mosaics around the archway.

The tunnel houses citrus fruit. The special metal structure allows the trees to stay warm in winter and keeps the temperature at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or above.

It was too hot to linger in the sun so I spent most of my time in the shade. I forgot to bring water, which was a big mistake.

I’m going to give you a quick tour of my favourite parts of the garden. Georg 2nd of Saxen-Meiningen was a plant collector. The garden has many unusual and rare plants - even from New Zealand!

We’ve now arrived in Fern Valley. Many of the plants are from Australia.

We are nearly at the top of the garden. This is where the food is grown.

A view across the lake to the town of Bellagio.

The view of Lake Como from under the Totara tree.

After walking along a lot of looping paths in the shade it’s time for me to leave, back though Fern Valley.

Fern Valley has an underwater feel. The light is so bleached and bright outside of the trees, but down here it’s green and dappled.

I left the shade and stepped into the midday sun. I bought a bottle of water from a gelato cart and drank it while I waited for the ferry.

‘Gardening in the shade can be more of a challenge than in a straightforward sunny garden,’ says Margery Fish. ‘It may be necessary to take more trouble but it can have many surprises, for there are many plants usually grown in the sun that will do quite well in the shade. No one can tell until they have tried, so there is the great interest of experiment and the thrill of success.’

And really that’s what it’s all about. No matter if your garden is large - like the Villa Carlotta, has poor soil - like Miss Wright’s garden or small - like my shady area; the solution is to experiment with plants.

The view of Bellagio from the Villa Carlotta ferry stop.