What's Up Magazines

Gardening in Small Spaces

Create a Lovely Shade Garden Under Your Deck

By Lori Pelkowski

Here's the situation: A beautiful backyard. A walkout basement. Sliding doors leading out to a patio where summer meals are enjoyed. A large deck flying overhead, out of the first-floor family room. That ugly area beneath the deck, where nothing will grow except maybe a few tenacious weeds, mars the beauty of the backyard and lovely patio.

There are a few things that can be done with your ugly area. First, there is the hide-it tactic: You can fence it in or cover it with lots of lattice to create a dark, damp storage area where mold and mildew will grow freely on anything you store there. Another option is to ignore the area by arranging patio chairs so their backs are turned away from the patch of dirt furrowed by rain falling through the slats of the flying deck.

Or you can take the high road. Instead of hiding or ignoring that lifeless part of your yard—and it can be a large part of the yard—you can transform it into a garden with echoes of native woodlands that will unify your entire outdoor living space. With some effort, probably not much more than it would take to fence in and hide the offending area, you can create a garden to connect the patio, the deck, and the rest of your backyard.

Here's a checklist of necessary steps for transforming that aesthetically unpleasing space into a unique and lovely garden area:

•  Site preparation.

•  Various sizes of rocks, from gravel to boulders.

•  Careful consideration when choosing plants.

•  Watering religiously during the establishment period.

Dry, dark, and unused characterize these underdeck situations. Water runs off or just sits there because the soil is compacted clay. This hardpan, a remnant of construction, limits the ability of plants to establish themselves in the area. It's essential to the success of your garden that you take care and effort to properly prepare the site. You must break up the compacted soil and add lots of organic matter, such as good compost. Remember, soil preparation is the first and ultimately most important ingredient to the success of your underdeck garden.

There is no question that the lowest and deepest areas of the underdeck space are the darkest and driest. If your deck is a full story overhead, more light and moisture reach the area under it and you have the added benefit of being able to walk there.

Combining gravel, cobble, boulders, and stepping-stones gives a nicely integrated balance of stone and plants.

Filled with shade- and moisture-loving plants, your underdeck garden can be designed to look like a lush streambed. Use rocks to _ fill in _____ the furrows created by water running through the deck slats. Use shrubs and perennial plants and they will return fresh and new each spring. To deter weeds from growing there, place landscape fabric under 2–3 inches of medium-sized river rock. When the rock is wet and sparkling, it takes on the magical appearance of a stream flowing through the woods.

The area under your deck is much like a forest floor beneath tall trees. It has limited natural resources—sun and moisture. The plants you introduce into this landscape must all be appropriate for these conditions. For this dry shade situation select plants that grow in the understory of a woodland canopy. Although the plantings won't be as thick, lush, and dense as in a sunnier, moister area, the result is woodsy and very appealing.

Group your plantings toward the edge of the garden , so they can take better advantage of any additional sun and moisture.

Try to use native plants in your underdeck garden. Here are a few to choose from:

Mapleleaf viburnum ( Viburnum acerifolium ) is a shrub that grows as a woody groundcover in woodland settings with limited sun and moisture. Use lots of little seedlings to create a groundcover effect. Michael Dirr, author of the illustrated encyclopedia Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs, loves this shrub. “This denizen of the woods offers tremendous shade tolerance and exquisite fall color. The leaves resemble Red Maple leaves. The foliage turns fluorescent rose to grape-juice purple in fall. White flower clusters open in June and are followed by shiny black fruit that ripen in September and persist into winter. Adaptable to difficult dry and shady conditions.” Sounds perfect, doesn't it?

Lowbush blueberry ( Vaccinium angustifolium ) Dirr says, “The delicate pink flowers and sweet, bluish-black berries of the Lowbush Blueberry are justification for [garden] use. It is a spreading shrub with lustrous dark green to blue-green foliage that turns brilliant scarlet and crimson in fall. Makes a fine groundcover mass and needs minimal maintenance.” Minimal maintenance is good.

Mountain laurel ( Kalmia latifolia ) is, according to Dirr, “without question one of the handsomest flowering broadleaf evergreens.” The flowers are massed in 4-inch diameter clusters and each individual flower “offers intricate beauty.” Mountain laurel will prosper in a sunnier corner of your underdeck garden.

Perennial Virginia Bluebells ( Mertensia virginica ) have smooth, gray-green foliage and nodding clusters of blue buds bursting into blue trumpet-shaped flowers in spring. They thrive in moderately moist soil and partial to almost-full shade. This member of the forget-me-not family is lovely when grown in masses.

Siberian bugloss ( Brunnera macrophylla ) is another shade-loving cousin of the forget-me-not, with a delightful display of sky-blue flowers in spring and reliable clumps of large, heart-shaped leaves all season. Sometimes brunnera will self-seed and appear around the garden in other places. This large plant makes an attractive and versatile groundcover, particularly under shrubs.

The May apple ( Podophyllum peltatum ) is a hardy woodland beauty that can spread to form a gorgeous green carpet in spring. Greenish flowers bloom in May (hence the name), but they are hard to see unless you lift up its umbrella leaves. The edible apples, or fruit, appear in midsummer, but please note that the leaves, roots, and seeds are poisonous if ingested in large amounts.

Ferns of any kind add an ethereal presence to the garden, as do tiny spring bulbs planted in the fall. Try Grecian windflower, muscari (grape hyacinth), or snowdrops to peek through the emerging foliage of your perennials.

Keep in mind when choosing perennials for shade that most of them prefer moist shade but will tolerate drier conditions once they are established. A lot of plants do not easily establish, requiring soil improvement and manual irrigation during the establishment period. What this means is that along with giving them lots of compost you must water the plants faithfully during their first year and even into their second year. Once you make a commitment to a plant, you must make a commitment to water it. This cannot be emphasized enough. For a garden—particularly one in as inhospitable a habitat as an underdeck garden—to succeed, it requires consistent watering.

Watering by hand is the best way to make sure each plant gets its due, but a soaker hose laid beneath a layer of mulch can be a helpful addition to hand watering. One of the nicest ways to enjoy your garden is to relax while watering it.

Transforming the space under your deck into a lovely garden can be a satisfying way to unite the different elements of your yard. Follow these steps to success, and turn those patio chairs around.

Lori Pelkowski owns and operates the Midnight Gardener, dedicated to residential garden maintenance and garden writing.