plant reccommendation for shady ground under camelia

hi all,

I was hoping for some advice. I've been researching for a while trying to find a nice plant to put under the 2 camelias in the back of my garden. The area probably gets sun for about half the day in the summer, and rarely in the winter. I had put helleborus niger (6) under but want to move that after its flowered because the camelia are flowering around the same time, and they could be used elsewhere. I have a very small garden, so ideally something which flowers late spring/summer/autumn would be good, but needs to be a small plant - anyone got any ideas?

 

Hi mz,

The ground under the Camellia is likely to be dry as well as shady. A plant that can cope with this and is fairly low growing is the Epimedium. They have small starry flowers in spring, there are white, yellow and red versions, followed by heart shaped leaves with often nice dark markings. The leaves on some varieties turn shades of orange and red in autumn.

You may also get away with Dicentra formosa, also spring flowering with pink, puple or white nodding flowers and glaucus finely cut leaves. They flower for a very long time.

 

I find the sweet woodruff works well under my rhododendrons. They are a woodland plant so cope quite well with a shady and dryish spot, with lovely little white flower heads.

 

Pachysandra, is evergreen, low growing, 6", flowering, and is just about the only thing to grow under leylandii.

 

soe lovely suggestions, thankyou. I'm going to do a bit more research but will let you know which I will go with - thanks!