Flowers

Shady conditions among the toughest gardening challenges _ and among the most ...

12.02.12

First, though, define darkness. Just how shady is it where you plan to plant?

Measuring daylight is an inexact science. Even the experts don’t always agree about how to quantify light levels, which are divided into as many as seven different categories, from full sun to deep shade.

“A commonsense filter has to apply here,” said Renee Shepherd, founder of Renee’s Garden Seeds in Felton, Calif. “There’s light shade and full shade, afternoon shade and morning shade. Under one kind of tree you might have extreme shade; under another it may be dappled.”

Finding the right location can mean life or death for a plant that needs some degree of sunlight to grow and reproduce.

“Vegetables that have foliage, like greens - lettuce, spinach and the cold crop family - can get by with four to six hours of direct sun,” said Keith Hansen, an extension horticulturist with Texas AgriLife Extension Service, in Smith County. “But anything that produces fruit needs light - the more the better.”

Source: Washington Post