Plant red flowering currant, Oregon grape, sword fern in dry shade beneath fir trees

Q. What plants would you suggest for dry shade under Douglas fir trees? We are removing years of neglect and want to plant under and on the edges of the stand of trees so that we can see into the woods and enjoy a lower story of plants.

A. For dry shade, I suggest first exploring plants native to the understory of Douglas fir forests in our Puget Sound lowlands. I grew up around these plants and took them for granted until I saw low Oregon grape, Mahonia nervosa, in a "Garden Plants for Connoisseurs" by the famed British plant explorer Roy Lancaster.

Wow — a plant that grew in a little woods next door to my boyhood home in Bellingham! These plants are worth a second look. Low Oregon grape's glossy evergreen leaves reach 12 to 24 inches and become suffused with red or purple in winter. They flower in late spring with yellow bells in clusters. Tall Oregon grape, Mahonia aquifolium, is a larger native evergreen shrub that will reach to 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide.

Red flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum, is another of our native plants highly favored in Britain. White forms are available too. All are deciduous and take shade, need little water and bloom in early spring.

Also very useful is our native sword fern, Polystichum munitum, an evergreen reaching 2 to 4 feet. In my neighborhood in Wallingford, the Douglas firs have been cut down, but sword ferns sprout out of the ubiquitous rockeries lining the streets. To keep sword ferns fresh looking, remove all old leaves each year in spring just before the new fronds unfurl.

Pacific Coast irises are hybrids of several native species and provide terrific flowers in many colors for dry shade. Another flowering native perennial, with a ferny texture to complement the blade-shaped iris leaves, is Pacific bleedingheart, Dicentra formosa. Add a third texture with false Solomon's seal, Smilacina racemosa, with its double-ranked leaves with fragrant white blooms at their ends that give way to red berries.

For more information about native plants I recommend the book "Gardening with Native Plants for the Pacific Northwest" by Arthur R. Kruckeberg.

You can add to these natives some non-native plants. Epimediums are low creeping evergreens for dry shade. They produce delicate flowers in early spring. I like Epimedium pinnatum colchicum, which grows to 16 inches with yellow flowers. Epimedium grandiflorum, has large red, violet and white flowers. New varieties are coming out of China and Japan, and you could make a wonderful collection of this genus Epimedium.

Add the spiky evergreen leaves of Iris foetidissima, gladwin iris, and you get a bonus of the winter color of the bright orange seeds when the seed capsules split open. I like the variegated form too, which would add sparkle in the shade.

The bigroot geranium, (the common name I've seen used locally for Geranium macrorrhizum) will bring a scalloped round leaf to the composition. This is a useful plant for sun or shade because it is mostly evergreen, requires no water and is easy to spread around by tearing off a piece and replanting it the fall or spring when the soil is moist. Several cultivars offer pink or white flowers. The leaves smell good and some turn bronzy red in winter. It has an offspring, Geranium x cantabrigiense, equally wonderful with smaller leaves and available in several cultivars with varying flower color.

Japanese anemones, Anemone x hybrida, grow huge (4 feet high, 6 feet wide) in my garden in part shade and are valuable for the fall flowers. I favor the cultivar 'Honorine Jobert' with single white flowers. You may like the semi-double whites and single or semi-double pinks and roses of others.

One more perennial is the true Solomon's seal. The double-ranked gracefully arching leaves are similar to but larger than the false Solomon's seal. The bell-shaped flowers hang along the leaves instead of at the end.

Once you get these started by offering summer water for the first few years, you will have a plant offering interest and change throughout the seasons.

Phil Wood has a degree in landscape architecture and designs and builds gardens. Call 206-464-8533 or e-mail thegardendesigner@seattletimes.com with your questions. Sorry, no personal replies.