hosta are ONLY shade tolerant ... and would love the area noted ... but can be extremely problematic with deer ...

as far as i understand peony are full sun.. to produce those giant flowers ... same for roses in general .. but the bottom line is always.. why not give it a try ... you can always move them again..

should they not flower to expectation .... low sun.. reduces a plants vigor.. and the first thing it will sacrifice is flower production .... rarely does the plant die outright from partial lack of sun ....

but regardless of your plants and sunlight.. you are going to have to deal with the deer ... frankly.. if they are a large enough population.. and hungry enough.. they will eat ANYTHING .... there really isnt a deer proof plant, per se ...

welcome to the GW

ken

I personally do not have a battle with deer so i dont know about them, but there is a lovely purple phlox (tall kind) that tolerates shade and my rozanne geranium (which is blueish purple)has a tag that says it is for part sun as well. I know spiderwwort is availible with purple flowers thatll work too.
I know they arent purple but there is a rose called Lyda rose, supposed to be great for part shade. You can ask around on the rose forum too! Good luck!

We don't have a lot of deer that come down into the yard, only a few that are curious and come down to eat the apples in the fall. They have plenty to eat in the fields and pastures out here. However, one little doe found my roses this summer, so I moved them up to the house and put blueberries in that spot. The next day, she came back for her "nice rose snack" and got blueberry leaves instead...didn't seem to be to her taste, so she hasn't done that again :)

I would love to try purple phlox and rozanne geranium...do they do well in zone 4? Spiderwort sounds good too. There are no trees, just east side of the house so the garden gets shade in the afternoon. I think I will try them, and as Ken said, you can always move them again!

Thank you for the responses.

in my first garden.. spiderwort was a wonderful tame plant ...

brought the same plant to a 2nd garden.. and it is still being killed 5 years later due to the plethora of seeds which sprouted everywhere ... i would call it an invasive ... link below.. go figure on that ...

and the two garden were 60 miles apart.. east/west of each other ...

you might want to be careful with that one

i did miss PURPLE in the title ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Hi LL!
I agree that hostas would be great. Many have lavender colored blooms too...

I know you want to stay away from the highly toxic plants, so that rules out the Monkshood.

Perennial geraniums are really wonderful. My Geranium sanguineum 'Vison Violet' does well in a part shade area with dry soil. Geranium phaeum 'Samobor' has dark purple flowers and reseeds very well. Both will rebloom some if snipped back.

There are many purple kinds of Aquilegia (Columbine) and Primula that are purple.

Japanese Painted Fern (Athyrium niponicum 'Pictum') has beautiful silvery green fronds with purple/burgundy new growth.
CMK

Well, my first thought was monkshood - just curious, CMK, why you said Lavender Lass would want to stay away from it. Did I miss some other post? :)

I don't really have a deer problem so I'm not sure if any of these will work for you, but in addition to the monkshood, there's also purple lobelia. I have some in full shade and it does quite well. Blue balloon flowers (platycodon) do well in half shade for me, as do columbines and primroses, as mentioned above. Phlox does quite well for me in partial shade also.

I have a friend who has a peony in what is probably half-day shade, although I think it's morning shade and afternoon sun. The peony does amazingly well - more amazing because it's in very wet soil, which I didn't think they liked.

Good luck with your deer problem. A few of my friends have deer in their yards and it gets very frustrating, so I hope you find a solution. By the way, now that I think of it, this peony in wet soil/part shade is in a garden that deer visit, and I don't think it's ever been touched by them. Maybe if you can get one to grow in your part shade it would do well with deer.

:)
Dee

Dee, do you have the Lobelia 'Grape Knee High", Lobelia x gerardii 'Vedrariensis' or Lobelia x 'Wildwood Splendor'?

I wouldn't mind a purple Lobelia for seriously part shade.

Have 'Ruby Slippers" and very happy with it. Would be happier if it would self sow. :)

Just picked up on clearance a few Hosta 'Blue Mouse Ears' which shows lovely purple flowers in photos. Got my fingers crossed deer don't start visiting little back bed right up against house by garage. I've not gotten any Hosta til now mostly because of slugs all over including on milkweed. Doesn't help if they die after they eat the leaves...LOL.

Purple flowers are lovely...one of my favorites.

Lavendar_Lass, you might really enjoy one of the lovely purple Lobelia.

On a blog called Mr. McGregor's Daughter there's an awesome slide show of Phlox 'Nicky' you might enjoy.

Here is a link that might be useful: Phlox 'Nicky' - Mr. McGregor's Daughter

Geranium maccrorhizum has purple flowers and makes a highly deer resistant, easily controlled groundcover. Most other geraniums are enjoyed by deer. I grow Stachys 'Robusta' in morning sun/afternoon shade and the deer leave it alone.

Pulmonaria
Toad lily - tricyrtis
primrose
brunnera (blue flowers)
hostas with purple flowers

Hmm, Newbie, I just have plain ol' lobelia syphilitica! I've never heard of the ones you mentioned so now of course I must go look them up! I did have one named variety which I can't remember off the top of my head now, but I believe I killed it off before I even got it into the ground.

I love my purple lobelia, and it spreads nicely too - not aggressively, but just enough. I planted some red lobelia (lobelia cardinalis) in a friend's bog-type garden for her, and LOVE it! I'm not normally a red person, but these blooms are the most gorgeous red I've ever seen.

Funny, I've been thinking of trying Blue Mouse Ears, but have never even seen the blooms. Just like the foliage...

:)
Dee

-dee, she posted it on another forum, and also mentioned it in our e-mails. ;-)

Another vote for the Pulmonaria (Lung Wort) beautiful plant!

Hummm...I grow Geranium maccrorhizum and always thought the color was a hot pink (aside from a few light pink and near white cultivars). Is there a cultivar with purple flowers now?

I have seen 'Rozanne' in a few gardens and it always looked true blue to me. I guess one man's purple is another man's blue, and one man's pink is another man's purple, lol!

I tried a red Lobelia (don't remember the species/cultivar) several years ago and it died out within a month! I put it in a fairly moist spot, but I guess it wasn't good enough. Might need to give it another go.
CMK

Thanks, Dee.

My great blue lobelia has pale blue flowers here.

I planted Lobelia 'Fan Blue' in Spring and they have irridescent violet blue flowers that lasted a long time. Very pretty mixed with great blue and 'Queen Victoria'.

Leslie

PS...deer ate flowers in late October...nothing is sacred around here.

Thank you all for giving me so many great ideas!

I think phlox and geranium would look really nice and I want to try some of the other plants too. I do try to keep the plants non-toxic, since I have horses and I don't want anything to spread out into their pasture (which is very close to that side of the house). I also have a lot of niece and nephews, who like to "help" in the garden and come out to see the horses. :)

The garden that is shady half the day is not under any trees, just on the east side of the house. It's a great place to sit in the summer because it is in the shade. I've been trying to add plants that are pretty and kind of cottage-like, since I call this my "fairy" garden. My nieces are 4 and 5 and they like to dress up as Tinkerbelle and play in the garden. I want to include some little "fairy things" to keep them interested. I found a little bridge the other day (for a fish tank) that will look perfect in the garden. I want it to seem a little "magical" for them, so any ideas would be appreciated.

While this garden is shady, there's a grass path along it and across is another garden that is in full sun. Along the back of the sunny garden, I'm putting blueberry bushes, to edge the garden and distract the deer :) I hope to put a couple of semi-dwarf apple trees behind this area with chives and strawberries underneath. Any suggestions for perennials in the sunny area would be great too. Hoping to put a few small roses and already have butterfly bushes on the ends and coneflowers. Also have an arch along the grass walkway at the end of the garden with a few roses. I'd love to put sweet peas on the arch, but the nieces love eating peas in the garden and I don't want to take a chance. I found some nice climbing peas with pink and lavender flowers that I put there instead. Near this is a little bird bath...hoping to make this fairly low upkeep at some point, so the more plants the better. LOL

Ooh! How about foxglove? Oh wait, I guess they're toxic too, aren't they? Darn, I thought I had such a good idea, lol. They'd be perfect in a cottagy, fairy garden.

:)
Dee

Dee- They would be pretty. It's a challenge to find non-toxic, deer resistant, zone 4 perennials :)

The peonies aren't really non-toxic, but they've been here for years, as have the daffodils. So far, no ill effects with the cats and the peonies won't spread into the pasture.

My biggest concern is plants like lily of the valley, which smells so good and looks so cute, the girls might be tempted to eat them, or the sweet peas, as mentioned before. I try to stay with violets, real peas (climbing) and roses...non-toxic, but I have to hide them from the deer :)

In part shade,Geranium Samobor will give you dark plum purple flowers as well as great foliage with dark maroon markings.Heucheras I have seen happy in part shade.And Perilla, a wonderful dark ppl leaved herb (annual but seeds so much as to be a perennial)can also tolerate p.shade. Agastache and Aconitum Carmichaelii are happy in p.shade.
best
mindy

Balloon flower can do alright in light shade. I have some in a partly shaded area and they bloom well. I have never had a problem with spiderwort becoming invasive. I always cut it back after it blooms and let it grow back and bloom again!

Good suggestions above.

Speaking of geraniums, annual geraniums will also tolerate part shade very well (just not *too* much shade), and there are some light purpley-pink varieties that you may like.

Not exactly on topic, but if you move the peonies be patient with blooms. In my neck of the woods they are finicky about being moved. Had huge ones right in front of our house when we moved here and the ants were coming in the house. When we moved them, they took a few years to bloom and really have never recovered.

Ooop, forgot to mention re: alba roses. They *tolerate* part shade, but they really don't *thrive* in it and certainly don't have the glorious bloom display as when planted in full sun. I have a "Queen of Denmark" that is not in full sun, and it is just eh - not nearly as floriferous nor as lush in terms of foliage as it was when I had it in a sunnier location.

Same story with rugosa roses, even though they, too, are part-shade tolerant.

well sarah, you gave me a big guffaw of surprise,(because tradescantia is one of our most invasive perennials in Z.5 Boston area!), but it really doesn't do me any good unless I know where you garden. 5 doesn't tell me anything, so I can't learn from you here unless you put your experience in context by listing your zone and location.
(ex. mimosa trees are an invasive weed in the So.U.S. but here in z.5 New Eng. they are not invasive because it's too cold for their zillions of seedlings to winter over.

best,
mindy

One more note on the idea of peonies for part shade-I have one in a spot that gets only part sun-maybe closer to part shade. The plant is healthy, but I only get two to three flowers. Still, those are spectacular, so I keep it.

I grow Siberian iris in part sun/part shade and they bloom and grow without problem. There are Cimicifuga (AKA Actea) such as 'Brunette' with dark purple/maroon leaves that do well in part shade, and have white spires of flowers in late summer. Some folks have found them fussy, but I've not had problems. They are quite deer resistant. There are some varieties of clematis that do well in part sun/shade - I'd google for clematis & shade or go to Clematis on the Web and either search or see if there is a list of shade tolerant clematis there. I have one (I think 'Blue Angel') that grows on the east side of my house, and only gets morning sun, though high, bright shade the rest of the day. It is flourishing. I also had a clematis 'Venosa Violacea' which is purple & white that grew well & bloomed in the same part shade garden as the Actea & Siberian iris until the voles ate the roots last winter. :>(

Here is a link that might be useful: Clematis on the Web