Shrub for dark shallow spot.

atilladehun

I need a shrub for the darkest corner of my garden. There's walls to the east and south and the house is to the west.

The soil is really shallow there, I think the previous owner has a shed there with a concrete base. Now there's about 10 cm of soil. I have a large rose, Clematis and lupins growing just out of the wall shadow. There's also a strange hydrangea type Bush along the wall.

Any ideas as to what I can put there? Everything I see says plant in sunny location.

Harry Palmr

The fern Dryopteris erythrosora has some nice rusty colour to it, along with the pale green.

looksee

There are quite a lot of things will grow in shade, the issue is 10cm of soil!

atilladehun

Yeah, I've considered taking the hammer drill to the base through the soil but I've no idea how effective that will be. I also don't want to mess with the walls.

I'm open to any suggestions. Something flowering would be preferable.

looksee

Rather than waste time and money planting things that are going to die, scrape away the 10cm of soil and see what you have. The wall foundations should not be more than a few inches wide so anything else is, as you say, shed base or whatever.

Either build up a planting box (though you would still need to drill a few holes or knock some of the concrete out of the slab) or remove the concrete. Alternatively at a push you could leave gaps in the bottom row of blocks/bricks of your box to allow drainage.

Presumably the slab extends further into the garden, so what is happening there?

Hocus Focus

Or build a raised bed.