Shade Tolerant Annuals

Many annual plants need full sun to live and to bloom well, but some annuals will tolerate quite a bit of shade. These are plants you want for shady flowerbeds or along walls that block out the sun, or on shady balconies and porches.

Three popular shade-tolerant annuals are wax begonia, impatiens and coleus. Wax begonias are short plants with leaves that are glossy bronze or green, and either single or double flowers in pink, red, or white. They are excellent edging plants. Impatiens will give you continuous blooms in white, red, orange, pink and lavender and add sparkling color to flowerbeds, containers or borders in shady areas. Coleus plants are known for their remarkable foliage patterns and colors. The tiny flowers they produce are not attractive; pinch them off as they appear.

Two shorter annuals that thrive in shade are torenia, the wishbone flower, and mimulus or monkey flower. Two other flowers you might want to try are lobelia, a delicate blue, purple or white edging annual and browallia, which has blue or white trumpet-shaped flowers that look especially good growing with impatiens.