Building Shade

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Carol A. Crotta

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A simple lath-covered structure offers shade for people below, as well as a ready-made horizontal surface for displaying hanging pots and shade-loving plants.

A prerequisite to a shady garden is, of course, shade. Home gardeners who love shade but live in the Sunbelt (or anyone living in a newer subdivision without large, established trees) have got to get a little creative for their shade garden dreams to become a reality. Since it’s impossible to make trees grow faster to provide the perfect, immediate dappled light, your fastest option is to build your own shade.

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An arbor, pergola or other openwork structure provides the dappled light shady plants enjoy.

There’s a variety of shade structures to choose from, including pergolas, gazebos and arbors. Smaller projects, like lath-covered structures, can take as little as a weekend to build from scratch, and even less time if you decide to purchase a prefabricated kit from a hardware or home-improvement store. The trelliswork itself provides some shade, serving as an attractive backdrop and support for such shade-tolerant climbing vines as morning glory and clematis.

The offset shade cover shown here is made of red cedar, is simple to construct and makes an attractive focal point for any garden. Just take the steps shown in the following pictures and described in their captions for a successful weekend project.

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With the right materials, this shade cover project can be completed in one weekend.

Materials:

2 10 foot 4x4 posts
4 2 foot 2x6 support rails
2 8-inch 2x4 braces
2 16-inch 2x4 braces
2 8-foot 2x6 ledgers
23 3-foot 2x2 shade stiles
4 bags of fence-post concrete mix
4 3⁄8x7½ -inch bolts, nuts and washers
8 1⁄8x3-inch lag screws
1½ gallons of each: primer/sealer and paint

Tips

Measure twice, cut once!
Many shade plants will ramble upward to seek the sun and become lanky. Control this tendency toward legginess with an occasional pruning to make their growth more compact.

Faqs

Q: Are there any plants I can use to “grow” shade quickly?
A: One simple way to create shade is to buy some large, fast-growing, sun-loving shrubs that quickly branch out, such as honeysuckle or lilac. You can plant these in the ground or, for an incredibly quick solution, place them in large containers and arrange them to establish a shady plot. This idea works particularly well if you’re planting trees within the same plot. By the time the trees have established, the potted shrubs can be moved to another location or transplanted to open ground.
Q: Does shade cloth work?
A: Shade cloth is a good idea if you need to create shade in a jiffy, and it’s commonly available at home-improvement stores and garden centers. Shade cloth is woven, screen-like material usually made from plastic but sometimes also from metal. It’s typically available in mesh sizes offering either 30 percent or 60 percent filtration of the sun’s rays. If you already have an arbor or other openwork patio structure, you can affix the shade cloth with small staples to the cross beams.

Come to The Garden Party and share your shaded outdoor living space with the rest of our Learn2Grow community! Post some pictures of your finished project, create a blog, or learn from our experts and other home gardeners some more ways to bring shaded beauty into your yard.

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Articles

Working With Your Sun
The light levels in your yard change throughout the day and from season to season. Give your plants the proper sun (or shade) they need by first evaluating the light that streams into all parts of your yard.
Design by Function: Shade Garden
Dedicating a corner of your sunny yard to a shade garden is a great way to gain some backyard relief from the heat, as well as get some different plants in your garden that you otherwise couldn’t try. We’ll give you the design, you pick the plants!
Arbor Day (for an Elegant Entrance)
An arbor is more than a place for climbing plants – it’s a portal to your garden sanctuary. While it takes a little planning and some materials, building an elegant arbor is a relatively easy project. All it takes is one weekend-worth of work to have years-worth of enjoyment.

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