Lots of green, no other colours!

[Kimi01]

My garden (in Richmond, VA) is very wooded and doesn't get much sun.

Various shrubs and bushes are dotted about the place and grow like weeds, but they're all green. I'd like a bit of colour.

Is that going to be difficult with the limited sun?

Ideally I'd like a few coloured shrubs and wild flowers (that also grow like weeds). Soil is fairly sandy and moist, it's next to a brook that occasionally floods.

Any suggestions?

 

[Tetters]

Welcome to the forums I think your number one plant would be hardy geraniums. These are in various blues, mauves and pink. Aquilegia is another one - again in some good bright colours. Nasturtiums too with some lovely bright reds and oranges will grow almost anywhere, and some climb, while others stay more compact. Hydrangea, and honeysuckle, and if your soil is acid enough Rhododendrons.

 

[Kimi01]

Welcome to the forums I think your number one plant would be hardy geraniums. These are in various blues, mauves and pink. Aquilegia is another one - again in some good bright colours. Nasturtiums too with some lovely bright reds and oranges will grow almost anywhere, and some climb, while others stay more compact. Hydrangea, and honeysuckle, and if your soil is acid enough Rhododendrons.

Awesome advice! Thanks.

 

[Tetters]

Please will you show us some ''before and after'' photos - we'd like that

 

[Kimi01]

Will do. I'm going to have plant in the autumn though, it's too hot here currently. So make sure you're in it for the long haul!

 

[Tetters]

I'll try to keep breathing

 

[Oliver Buckle]

For a shrub a pieris won't mind the shade and the new shoots are red, I had one growing under trees at the bottom of a garden I had and had bluebells planted round the bottom of it.
Trees and a stream sound idyllic, and I am pretty sure Tetters will be about for a bit, so show us the 'before'