Top Shade-Loving Annuals

Impatiens are one of the most popular plants for shade -- and it's easy to see why. They bloom constantly from spring to fall, offer flowers in just about every color, and couldn't be easier to grow. Look for New Guinea impatiens, which bear larger blossoms and stockier stems; double impatiens, which feature petal-filled, roselike flowers; or mini impatiens, which cover themselves in small blooms.

Sometimes called wishbone flower, torenia is a charming annual with beautiful trumpet-shape blooms in a range of shades from blues and purples to pinks and yellows. And versatile torenia is available in both upright and trailing varieties, making it perfect for beds and borders as well as containers.

Test Garden Tip: Torenia is a good plant for attracting hummingbirds.

Grow coleus for its fantastic foliage -- there are hundreds of varieties, and they feature leaves splashed, spotted, streaked, and otherwise colored with shades of chartreuse, purple, pink, red, black, and green. Make eye-catching combinations by growing a few varieties of coleus together -- or complement your favorite flowers with coleuses that have similar leaf colors.

A coleus look-alike, perilla also features fabulous foliage, though in a more limited range of colors. Varieties such as 'Magilla' (shown here) offer variegated leaves. Older selections have pure purple foliage, tend to self-seed freely in the garden, and are sometimes used in Asian cooking.

Browallia is a surefire pick for adding rich color to your shade garden. This delightful annual bears star-shape flowers in blue, lavender, and white over emerald-green foliage. It's a fast grower that does well in shade or sun. In warm-climate areas it may self-seed, but not to the point of being considered a pest.

Golden-leaf selections of oxalis are the perfect complement to browallia; blue and gold always look good together. Oxalis varieties may offer attractive green or purple foliage, as well, and are sometimes called shamrocks because of their leaf shape. They also produce pretty pink, white, or yellow flowers. Some varieties are happy in sun or shade; others need protection from the sun during the hottest part of the day.

Add a dose of whimsy to your garden with polka-dot plant. It bears pretty, purple-green leaves that, as the name suggests, are decoratively speckled in shades of pink and white. Native to Madagascar, this tropical plant thrives in hot, humid conditions. Adaptable polka-dot plant is also relatively drought-tolerant.

Bring elegance to your garden with fuchsias. These graceful plants bear gorgeous pendulous flowers, making them ideal for hanging baskets. The petal-filled blooms appear in a number of shades of red, pink, and purple, and some selections offer variegated foliage. So enjoy these beautiful flowers -- and the hummingbirds they invariably attract.

You can't beat this fast-growing plant for bold summer color. It produces bronze, purple, or chartreuse foliage depending on the variety and grows quickly once temperatures heat up. Use it in containers or as a dramatic groundcover.

Add lobelias to bring rich, true blues in the garden. These trailing plants flower prolifically in spring and fall, almost covering themselves in flowers. Annual lobelia is a cool-season plant that does best in shade in the South, though it loves partial shade in the North.

Like lobelia, violas are cool-season plants that can take full sun in early spring and fall, but they'll bloom a bit later into the summer if you grow them in the shade, especially in the South. Violas bear flowers in a dizzying range of shades including many wonderful bicolors such as the 'Sorbet Coconut Swirl' shown here.

Note: Violas may be short-lived perennials in some areas, though they're often grown as annuals.

Balsam is an old-fashioned plant closely related to impatiens. Like its cousin, it blooms in a wide range of shades, though balsam plants tend to be taller and the flowers much more intricate than impatiens. It also self-seeds, so plant it once and you're likely to enjoy the beautiful blooms for years.

Pack a lot of color in a small area with beefsteak plant's bold foliage. Available in shades of purple, pink, lime, and cream, the leaves look as great as coleus. It's easy to grow -- in fact, you can even bring containers of beefsteak plant indoors as a houseplant for a bold shot of winter color.