THE March meeting of the Malvern Horticultural Society welcomed Elaine Horton for a talk about Aspects of Shade.

Her philosophy is straightforward.

You will have shade in your garden and if you think it is a problem, you are missing out on an opportunity to create something a bit different.

Firstly, you need to assess your shady situation – when is it shady, is it deep shade, seasonal shade, dry or damp? Once you have answered these questions you can set about deciding which plants you can grow.

Whatever the situation, there is no shortage of options from bulbs, herbaceous perennials, climbers and shrubs.

Elaine’s talk, backed up by her excellent photographs, showed exactly what opportunities there were for making an impact in a shady situation. She referred to familiar plants – snowdrops, bluebells, primroses, hellebores, ferns, mahonias, clematis, honeysuckles and so on, and she also introduced others that you may have some doubts about – daphnes, mock orange, jacob’s ladder, thalictrums and the Corsican hellebore.

Summarising her talk, Elaine demonstrated that shade was an opportunity not to be missed.