Shade & understory woodland
A full-shade woodland-floor community for deep shade beneath a closed canopy: an understory shrub, spreading groundcovers, spring ephemerals, and a large fern - eastern North American natives that expect low light and leaf-litter soil.
Use beneath a mature tree canopy or on the deeply shaded north side of a building, in soil enriched with leaf litter. The spring ephemerals do their work early then go dormant - pair them with the ferns and groundcover that hold the space all season.
Layout notes
Spicebush is the understory shrub layer - full-to-part shade, host to the spicebush swallowtail, with red drupes for birds.
Wild ginger is the deep-shade groundcover - a slow-spreading mat across the woodland floor.
Bloodroot and Virginia bluebells are the spring ephemerals - they bloom before the canopy leafs out, then go summer-dormant, so site them where the ferns fill the gap.
Mayapple forms colonial drifts from a single rhizome - give it room to run; only the ripe fruit is non-toxic, the rest of the plant is poisonous.
Ostrich fern is the large fern layer (3-5 ft) - it wants consistently moist shade and spreads by runners; foamflower carries the low near-evergreen groundcover between the rest.
Layout sketch
A scaled bed view shows how the collection can sit together in space, with plant circles sized from catalog spacing and growth data.
12' x 12' bed, 7 placements
