My Favourite Plants for Shade – That Also Happen to be Native to Australia

If you have a shady spot in your garden and you’re looking for flowering plants for shade, you can fill it with colourful Australian native flowers! Let me show you how.

Here are a few of my favourites growing in the shaded positions in my garden. Most are on the south side of high fences or buildings, planted under large shrubs and trees and receive very little direct sunlight. Click any photo to see it full size.

Plectranthus parviflorus ‘Blue Spires’

First up is the compact and low growing Blue Spires. It flowers prolifically in spring and sporadically throughout the rest of the year, even without any direct sunlight.

The variegated leaves provide added benefits in a shaded spot – with the bright leaf edges providing welcome contrast and pops of light in dark areas.

This beautiful plant keeps a lovely shape and is unbothered by pests in my garden. It also tolerates both wet and dry conditions making it one of the most versatile plants for shade. And as a bonus, it is widely available from many nurseries in spring, including Flower Power in Sydney.

Read more about growing and caring for Plectranthus parviflorus Blue Spires here.

Melastoma affine

This beautiful shrub is very easy to confuse with an exotic, and it’s a great native substitute for an exotic Tibouchina.

It has a lovely rounded ridged leaf, forming a densely leaved medium shrub with pretty large petal flowers. The variety that I have in my garden has bright magenta flowers – so bright that they glow like neon in the shade. But I have also seen much paler pink versions, pastel pink and also white varieties.

It will prefer your moist shade position. You’ll likely need to visit a specialist native nursery to source this plant.

Indigofera australis

One of my favourite Australian native plants, the Austral Indigo is a slender upright shrub. I have seen it described as straggly, but in a garden setting with regular pruning when young you can encourage a more branched plant that I think would be better described as graceful with an upright weeping habit.

It naturally grows as a mid storey shrub in open forests, so I find it works well in shady positions with dappled light. But it can also grow in sunnier locations if you prefer.

The flowers in spring are showy in various shades of pink mostly. The beautiful pink pea flowers and graceful sprays of pretty rounded leaves make this one of my favourite native plants. Perhaps even in the top 10!

Read more about growing and caring for Indigofera australis here.

Ajuga australis

This is such a useful plant in the garden, it should be more widely stocked in nurseries. The Australian native varieties are very variable in leaf shape and colour with flowers ranging from pink to bright purple and blues. I have written more about it in my recent blog post about my top 10 small native plants for Australian cottage style gardens.

In a light to heavy shade position it provides low growing ground cover under other trees and shrubs or can be used to create a border in a shaded spot. The purple flowers in spring and sporadically at other times in the warmer months will attract native bees. They are particularly favoured by Blue Banded Bees in my garden.

Read more about growing and caring for Ajuga australis here.

Phebalium

There are many varieties of native Phebalium indigenous to numerous areas across Australia. It’s a charming and pretty native plant, no matter which one you can find locally.

In my Sunshine Coast garden I have both Phebalium woombye and Phebalium nottii which have charming pink flowers with crazy stamens that radiate from the flower at odd angles topped with bright yellow tips. They thrive and flower profusely in a spot in my garden next to a fence that receives little direct sunlight.

Phebalium are also available with sunny yellow flowers, and sweet lemon sherbert shades, plus starry white blooms. Pick one up from your local native nursery, Landcare or community/council nursery if you can, as a variety that is indigenous to your area will surely perform better in most situations.

Spathoglottis – Ground Orchid

Here in my new garden on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, the ground orchid is a very useful flowering plant for shady areas. This Spathoglottis paulinae Ground Orchid is growing along the south side between the house and fence in a very shady narrow garden bed. And look at the beautiful flower display!

Spathoglottis are difficult to grow outside in the southern states as they do not like the cold. But in sub-tropical and tropical climates they are a beautiful bulk replacement for shady moist places in your garden. There are also many other wonderful species of Lily that you can grow in shaded spots in this climate. I’ll be posting some more photos this year, but in the meantime if you’d like me to send you a list then please drop me a note below.

Read more about growing and caring for Spathoglottis ground orchids here.

Proiphys cunninghamii – Brisbane Lily

If you’re in the tropics or sub-tropics then Proiphys cunninghamii, commonly called the ”Brisbane Lily” or “Morton Bay Lily” is a beautiful Australian native with tall umbels of stunning white flower clusters in late Spring to Summer. It loves deep shade and will still flower abundantly in those conditions. If you have a very dry winter then the leaves may die down – but don’t panic, it grows from a strong bulb under ground and will spring back to life when the rain and warm weather returns. It is one of the most beautiful Australian native flowering plants for shade in my opinion!

Read more about growing and caring for the Brisbane Lily here.

Lomatia silaifolia ‘Crinkle Bush’

At first glance you’ll think this is a Grevillea! But no it is the useful Lomatia salaifolia, sometimes known as a Crinkle Bush or Parsley Bush. It has white flowers that do look somewhat similar to a Grevillea and similar looking foilage too. But the great advantage of this native shrub is it will grow and flower in shade! It is ideal for shade spots beside a fence in flower filled and pollinator friendly Australian gardens and cottage gardens.

Photos to come soon!