Plants for a Shady Backyard Larder.


The shredded bark has just had its annual renewal in our backyard so whilst things are looking tidy I've taken a photograph.

Photo of The Backyard Larder backyard

Despite the sunlit scene above it's basically a shady garden. It is overshadowed on three sides by two or three storey brick walls with slightly lower walls to the south (right hand side of the photo). So sunlight visits this space patchily and fleetingly as the day passes. It lights the area close to the house first and slowly spreads down the path, arriving late and promptly pulling its tail behind it during the winter months but lingering for a while after lunch in the summer before leaving by the garden gate. In winter it will not reach ground level anywhere in the garden - although it may illuminate the shelves on the left hand wall at the start and end of the season. But, for a short time at midday on the summer solstice, sunlight reaches right across the shredded bark area to the front edge of the bed on the right.

Perennial vegetables that I've found will grow here so far are:

In the narrow left-hand bed

Salad burnet
Garlic chives
Wild rocket
Garden sorrel
Caucasian spinach
Garlic cress
Babington leek
Tree onion

In pots or raised beds in the centre

Daubenton kale
Pink purslane
Skirret
Watercress
Red-veined sorrel
Mountain sorrel

In the bed at the back and right-hand side

Dwarf golden hop
Solomon's seal
Apple mint
Musk mallow
Ostrich fern
Sweet violet
Good King Henry

I want to add at least Welsh onion and everlasting onion to the mix. And, having recently had our first taste of hosta shoots (excellent eating!), we're looking forward to having a hosta collection here too.


N.B. I sell a range of perennial vegetable plants on my website.