How do you know your zone?

Your "zone" is determined by geography. If you live in the twin cities you are in zone 4. If you are in northern MN you are probably in zone 3. When you buy plants their information sticks should tell you what zones they will survive in. You should look for zone 4 and lower. Beware, many garden centers in MN do sell zone 5 plants. They may make it, but generally require a lot of additional care to grow here. Lamium is wonderful & comes in a number of colors.

Here are some of my favorite perennials for shade:

Goat's Beard (Aruncus)
Monk's Hood
Lamiastrum
Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)
Hostas (duh)
Ferns (double duh)
Ajuga
Columbine (Aquilegia)
Bleeding Heart (Dicentra)
Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla)
Lily of the Valley (Convallaria)
Ligularia
Brunnera
Lungwort (Pulmonaria)
Primrose (Primula)

If you can afford it, I highly recommend adding some annuals to your perennials bed, to provide color when the perennials are not in bloom (most perennials have a specific bloom period and then are done for the season).

Annuals for shade:

Impatients
Begonias (tuberous & wax)
Monkey flower (Mimulus)
Torenia
Flowering Maple (Abutilon)
Fuschia

Hope that helps!

One more - If you are looking for a flowering shrub-type plant Endless Summer™ hydrangeas do well in part shade.

Thanks, auntie! I'm printing your reply and taking it with me this weekend.

Good luck! I also recommend Linder's flower marts. They have their 50% closeout sale right now.

Hi, Kate... I'm in Zone 5 in Illinois. Auntie covered it pretty much. I would add Coleus to her annuals... there are some pretty colorful ones out there plus the new Kong Coleus... they are showy and make great potted plants. Unless you have magic in your fingers, fuschia is a wicked plant to raise in my zone... I always lose them the first month of spring!

Auntie, you're a gardener worth your weight in rich blackdirt! :-)

This fall, I will be dividing a lot of plants... want some?

I have almost everything on your first list except for the Alchemilla, mine disappeared over the winter. I have to replace them this fall. I LOVE the new brunneras, heucheras and heucherellas... The colors are heart=stoppingly gorgeous!

It sounds like you don't care too much for hostas or ferns? I got bit by the Hosta bug and I went on an acquiring binge... I now own over 150 varieties... yup, my purse is looking lean these days.

I just ordered some of that pricey and new PINK lily-of-thevalley... Can't wait to get it!

Oh yes, by all means, buy some coleus!

Pearl, for the last 3 years I've work part-time for a garden center. The sad irony is that I took the job because I love to garden, but now have no time for it, because this year they talked me into managing the place.

Wow, you have a HUGE number of hostas! I don't think my small city lot would hold 150 hostas! Heucheras are lovely, I have 3 of them. I need to get some of the burgundy-leafed ones, the foliage is so pretty.

PINK lily of the valley?? Be still my beating heart!

I volunteered to work for free at my favorite local nursery just to be around the plants but my husband puts his foot down... my arthritis is keeping me less able to do what I used to do and must conserve my energy. He hired 2 young girls to help me with the gardening twice a week... so, it does not make sense for me to go work somewhere else when I need help at home!

If you're managing a garden center you must have access to EVERYTHING new and wonderful for the garden??? Whee! What a dream job!

We bought and moved into this house on the outskirts of the city so we could take my mother-in-law in after she was diagnosed with Alzheimers. My hostas started as a small garden in her memory when she died 2 years ago. My advice? Don't ever get started on hostas! It's a sickness... you gotta have every new kind you see!

About the heucheras, I like the new Stoplight... it's such a BRIGHT lime green right now it stops everybody on their track!... I have the Amber Waves, the Dolce Creme Brulee, Peace Melba, Lime Rickey, Green Spice, Regina, Purple Myst, and of course the ever popular Purple Palace... 2 new heucheras, Marmalade and Obsidian are on their way to me, they should be here before the week-end! The names they give these new varieties make me hungry!

Yes, pink lilies of the valley! :-)

Auntie, have you seen some of the specialty Coleus? Between Farmer's Mkt and Tangletown, I have found so many different species.

The large ones like "Kong" are really lovely. There are even a number of "sun" coleus. But I'm working so much (2 jobs!) that I haven't had time to shop anywhere but my own flower mart.

I like the amber ones called Tobacco. Two jobs if you don't count all the stuff you have to do at home too. Which is on tap after I go out and plant the herbs. I have already discarded one dead bird, watch Petey catch and squeeze another bird for about 20 minutes, still alive, still somewhere in my house, hopefully not dead. I am kinda waiting to see what happens next. Ooh, I am picking black raspberries along the side of the house this week too. See ya.

Ooooh, raspberries. I saw some canes that were in fruit on Minnehaha Parkway (Minneapolis MN) last week. This week somebody came through with a weed-whacker.

It's a crime, practically vandalism.

*tapping my teeth*

Wasn't there another, more detailed "garden zone" system at one time?

Back to your excellent question, Kate, I'm here in Zone 4 too. For shade I like the classic Lily of the Valley (what is this Pink Lily of the Valley business? PHOTOS please!) but it isn't good for companion animals, or perhaps just dogs.

p.s. I agree with you: wild/public raspberry removal is a crime.

Julia, some gardeners divide the zones further into 4a and 4b. I believe we're 4a. Here's a clickable plant hardiness zone map from the USDA.

Thanks, auntie. I swear tho... I swear Preston (Preston Wright, author of Mouse and Garden and a coworker) told me about some really extensive zoning thing. Sunset magazine? Really, I'm wracking my brains and can't recall, so I'll have to ask him.

Hi, I wrote about this a while back on my blog Mouse and garden for Minnesota Public Radio.

Getting into the zone. There are links to the sunset zone maps and reasons why I think we should revamp the USDA ones. I am a serious zone pusher, fruit tree burrier, groing bananas in my front yard kind of guy--in St. Paul MN.

I'm in Duluth, about a thousand feet from the lake. I consider my zone to be a pure 5 because of the moderating effect of the lake. (Most years it actually works.) One of my favorite shade plants is the newer brunnera, 'Jack Frost'. I'm a self-admitted sucker for variegated foliage. Along those same lines, there is a variegated Jacob's Ladder that is very pretty.

Besides the USDA web site, their basic zone map is printed somewhere in virtually every gardening catalog that sells perennial plants, shrubs, or trees. Some of the more comprehensive gardening books also contain some other USDA climate maps such as average frost dates or heat zones. While the information on these maps is reliable, they can't account for any of the other climatic factors that affect how plants survive in your garden such as rainfall, snowfall, soil structure, local topography, or how much and what kinds of winter protection the gardener provides.

St Paul is near the line between zones 4 and 3, but the Twin Cities is warmer than the surrounding area, and the gravel layer in your garden area should allow you to grow some of the hardier zone 5 plants without a lot of extra tlc. One of the biggest factors for determining how far you can push your hardiness zone is how much standing water you have during the spring thaw. Many plants are able to survive much colder winter temperatures as long as their crowns aren't exposed to standing water while the snow cover melts and the ground thaws.

Pearl, we plant perennials a little differently up here. We do almost all our planting in the spring because our long, cold winters often kill or severely weaken plants that haven't had a full season's growth to establish a new root system and become solidly anchored in the soil.

I forgot to mention daylillies. They work fine in part shade to shade.

Carol - I think you're right about that 5. Down in the cities, I find the 4's and 5's to work best.

Auntie - daylilies - you're absolutely correct. Daylilies grow very well here in the Twin Cities.