Top 5 Crops for a Shaded Garden

You've got a back green that's overshadowed by the tenement across the close, or a border under next door's sycamore, or a narrow strip between two gable walls that loses the sun by ten in the morning. You've probably decided that growing your own food isn't an option here. That's worth testing before you file it away. Not every shaded plot is shaded the same way, and not every food crop needs the six hours or more of full sun that most growing advice treats as the default. Chard, pak choi, a fan-trainedA fruit tree or bush trained flat with branches radiating out from a low point, the standard shape for wall-grown stone fruit. Full definition → Morello cherry, gooseberries and redcurrants all have a stated allowance for partial shade, and knowing which kind of shade you have matters more than any single crop choice.

Why back greens are often shaded

Traditional Scottish tenements, familiar from Glasgow and Edinburgh, share a back green, a communal patch at the rear of the block. Historic Environment Scotland describes them as three or four storeys of thick solid stone with a drying green shared by all to the rear. A block that height on both sides of a back green, or a narrow gap between two tall buildings in any dense city, throws shade for a good part of the day. That's ordinary urban geometry, not a design flaw. Under a large garden tree, the cause is plainly the canopy.

Partial shade and full shade aren't the same problem

"Shade" gets used as one vague label when it spans a real range. The RHS defines it by hours of direct sun at midsummer:

Midday sun is worth more than morning or evening sun, so timing matters as well as the total. A back green that gets a few hours of direct light around midday, once the sun clears the roofline, is partial shade and a useful growing spot for the crops below. A deep, narrow gap between tall buildings that never gets direct sun, or a bed permanently under a mature tree's canopy, is closer to deep shade. None of the five crops here, or realistically any food crop, will match a sunny plot's yield there. Better to know that now than after a season of disappointing results.

The five picks

Each of these has a stated shade allowance on its RHS growing page. The crop guides linked below give planting, spacing and care.

Chard

Chard does well in full sun, or with some light shade in summer, so it's a reasonable first crop for a back green that gets a few hours of direct sun through the middle of the day. Mature plants are fairly drought tolerant, though for the best crop of leaves water them during long dry spells. See the chard growing guide for sowing and spacing.

Pak choi

Pak choi's shade tolerance is more a technique than a blanket allowance. A sunny spot suits early and late sowings, but a lightly shaded one suits a summer crop, because pak choi is prone to bolting (running to flower instead of producing leaf), especially in hot, dry weather. For a summer crop, choose a bolt-resistantA plant switching early into flowering and seed production, usually triggered by stress, after which leaves, roots or bulbs turn bitter or unusable. Full page → variety, keep the soil moist, grow it in a cool, lightly shaded spot, and harvest as salad leaves or semi-mature heads. That makes a partially shaded bed useful rather than a compromise. See the pak choi growing guide for variety choice and sowing timing.

Morello cherry

This is the one where shade tolerance changes what's possible. A Morello, a sour or cooking cherry, can be fan-trained (pruned and tied flat against a wall or fence in a fan shape) against a south, west or north-facing wall, and its suitable conditions include partial shade as well as full sun. Sweet cherries generally want a warm, sunny south or south-west wall, so if the only spare wall in a shaded garden faces north, a Morello is the cherry to consider. It's also the slowest of the five to reward you: a trained fruit tree takes several years to establish and crop properly, against a single season for chard or pak choi. See the Morello cherry growing guide for training and pruning.

Gooseberry, 'Whinham's Industry'

Gooseberries crop best and give sweeter fruit in a sunny position but will tolerate some shade, and can be grown in dappled shade under fruit trees or trained against north-facing walls. 'Whinham's Industry' in particular is suited to full sun or partial shade, on any aspect: north, east, south or west. Expect a somewhat lighter or later harvest than in full sun. Choose a sheltered spot, because the brittle stems can snap under a heavy crop or strong wind, and avoid frost pocketsA low-lying spot where cold air drains and pools on still nights, making it noticeably more frost-prone than the surrounding area. Full definition →. Bushes also grow in containers at least 40cm wide and deep, worth knowing if a shaded back green means a pot rather than open ground. See the gooseberry growing guide for pruning and spacing.

Redcurrants and whitecurrants

Redcurrants prefer full sun but also grow well in partial shade, such as against a north-facing wall, and whitecurrants, a form of redcurrant, get the same allowance. The trade-off is that fruit grown in shade ripens slightly later and is less sweet than fruit in full sun, so don't plant a north wall expecting a dessert-sweet crop. As with gooseberries, choose a sheltered spot away from frost pockets. Blackcurrants usually want a sunnier spot than red or white, so don't assume the same allowance carries across every currant. See the redcurrants and whitecurrants growing guide for varieties and pruning.

How the five compare

All five are partial-shade crops. None is a deep-shade crop, and a site with under two hours of direct sun is more limited than a partially shaded one whatever you plant.

What else to plan for in a shaded plot

Rhubarb and kale are both worth adding to the shortlist. Rhubarb grows best in an open, sunny site but will also cope in light shade, and kale likes sun but will also cope in light shade. Rhubarb cares more about deep, fertile, moisture-retentive soil that doesn't get waterlogged than about shade. See the rhubarb growing guide and kale growing guide.

Shaded, damp back greens are good slug and snail territory, and two of the five picks, chard and pak choi, are tender leafy growth that slugs go for first. Protect seedlings, especially in damp weather, and keep dense weeds down since they give slugs somewhere to hide. Shade doesn't cause the slug problem, but it doesn't help either.

If the shade comes from a large garden tree, light usually isn't the only issue: the soil under a mature canopy is often dry and full of surface roots competing for water and nutrients, which can matter more than the shade itself. And if the shaded space is a shared tenement back green, check what your title deeds, factor or fellow residents allow before digging a bed or planting a fruit bush into communal ground.

Common questions

Sources