I regard as "sunlight" only when the sun is shining directly on the plant, or with high-efficiency reflection, such as from a mirror or one of those mirror-fabrics (sort of like shiny tinfoil) they make for garden purposes like increasing light. I realize that planting against a white wall will create a microclimate of greater light on the plant than if it were planted against a black wall or just standing alone in a field. I've been using that principle to my advantage with sage and sunflowers. There's light shade, partial shade and deep shade. To me, light shade is heavily dappled with sunlight, like sunlight through a tree that doesn't have a dense canopy. Partial shade means that the plant gets less than 6 hours of sunlight shining directly on it. Deep shade means the plant isn't even getting dappled sunlight, because the tree canopy is too dense, or the sun is blocked by a solid barrier (like a building). A plant can have both light and partial shade, or both deep and partial shade - like if it has 4 hours of direct sunlight shining on it and the rest of the day it has most of the sun screened by a tree. One of the things I did for my garden area one sunny weekend was make a drawing of the garden plot, copy it 12 times, then sketch in the shade lines every hour. That way I could tell exactly how much sunlight a particular area got on a sunny day, at a certain time of year. I repeated it a couple other times in the season and now I keep those sheets in my garden notebook. It led me to abandon a bed that hadn't been doing well because I figured out why - it was fully shaded at the base, so the vining crops I kept trying to grow there weren't making it up to the sun. Interestingly the morning glory weeds were doing great there, so now I grow morning glories there. Maybe next year I'll plant asparagus there, because it can tolerate shade, especially at first, until it gets tall and ferny (which would be when it was in the sun).

Also, is it total shade, filtered sun, or partial sun? I have a shady back yard that gets 2 hours of sun during different times of day. I have some asiatic lilies planted that get two hours of sun and they do fine. Some of your lemon lime colored hostas (Sum & Substance) would do fine with that amount of sun, too. But, it gets really big - 6' across and 4' high. Leaves are between 1'-2' long and wide. All perennials. Campanulas would probably do all right, too. Agastache foeniculum should be fine there as well. Might get a bit leggy, but it will bloom fine and attract the honeybees that we need so badly right now. These are perennial and reseeding plants. Hydrangeas (the dwarf varieties) can probably take that amount of sun, too. But think about the name - hydra - which means water, and they like a lot of it. Perennial Some salvias will also do okay. My 'Black & Blue' salvia does just great with a small amount of sun during the day. It's a gorgeous plant, too! It is perennial here. My coneflowers do okay too with just a little bit of sun. There are so many beautiful cultivars out there now as well. Perennial Clematis can take a lot of shade as well. They would be pretty climbing up thru your hedge. But they need their feet to be shaded, so mulch them well. Some varieties need more sun than others, so do you research on them. Holly ferns would grow fine - they can take a bit more sun than other ferns, and they are so pretty. No flowers, but the foliage is a bright shiny green. You can get them reasonably cheap at Home Depot or Lowe's. Susan

As long as the soil is adequately moist (though the soil does not need to be constantly wet)...full sun, even 100+ F degree sun, is just fine for the vegetative growth stage of peppers. They generally enjoy protection (shade, shade cloth, etc) when they're flowering and fruiting when temperatures are regularly around mid-90s+ F, though. Temperatures in the mid-90s F make some flowers abort without forming a fruit and intense sun on formed fruit can burn the fruit tissue. The leaves handle it all quite well as long as they have adequate moisture (but be sure not to keep the soil saturated with water...it's a bit of a delicate balance in arid areas). While they're still in the non-flowering/non-fruiting stage they do rather well with full sun, even at 100+F. As far as the moisture balance goes for hot times of the year...if you notice leaves drooping during the worst of the day on established plants beyond the very small seedling stage, there's no need to panic...that's natural. If you notice them not perking up after the sun goes down and they're still drooping...they probably need more water than what you're giving them.

Hi there, I'm a younger gardener in northern BC. I have tomatoes planted in a hot house which recieved full sunlight until just recently. My neighbor's tree has put all its leaves out. Now my plants receive direct light from 9 until 4, and dappled indirect light after. Is that enough light to be passed as full sun?