Shade Gardening in Central Florida

The main topics covered in the webinar include Florida Friendly Landscaping principles, the benefits of shade gardens, varying degrees of shade, tips for gardening with shade, and a selection of shade tolerant plants.

Florida Friendly Landscaping is a program through the University of Florida designed to maintain landscapes while reducing the inputs of water, fertilizer, and pesticides, thus preserving beautiful landscapes and protecting natural resources. Its foundation is the "right plant right place" principle, which is crucial for gardening success in Florida.

Benefits of a shade garden include providing a cool escape, offering privacy and screening, creating a habitat for wildlife, potentially requiring less maintenance, saving energy, and providing frost protection for cold-sensitive plants.

There are varying degrees of shade including light shade, partial or dappled shade, full shade, and dense shade. Each has specific characteristics, such as the amount of direct sunlight received, which affects what types of plants can thrive in those conditions.

To enhance the visual appeal of a shade garden, use light-colored or brightly colored flowers, plants with lighter or chartreuse green foliage, interesting textures, layers in planting, and incorporate garden art, benches, or brightly colored pots.

Most fruit and vegetable plants require full sun, so they are not ideal for shade gardens, and most turf grasses will not thrive in shaded areas, although there are some cultivars of St. Augustine grass that can tolerate lower light conditions.

Some shade-tolerant plants suitable for Central Florida gardens include mondo grass, peacock ginger, creeping sage, caladiums, bromeliads, crossandra, rouge plant, wild coffee, beautyberry, needle palm, oakleaf hydrangea, and pinwheel jasmine.