As their name implies evergreen plants retain their leaves throughout the year and so are particularly useful when their deciduous cousins have lost their foliage. The seven plants described below will thrive in shade and continue to provide interest when other summer flowering types have shed their leaves for the winter. These useful plants are described in an article by Lauren Dunec Hoang which I found on the Houzz website.
Come winter, many of our favorite tried-and-true plants for shade lose their leaves or die back to the ground. By adding a few hardworking evergreen plants to shaded areas, you can fill in winter bare spots, create year-round structure and cut down on maintenance ? all in one fell swoop.
To get started, take a look at these shade-tolerant evergreen plants and dynamic combinations from Houzz gardens.
Leopard Plant
(Farfugium japonicum ?Aureomaculatum?)Hosta-like foliage. With an all-green color palette, this partially shaded garden in Santa Barbara, California, relies on a contrast in form and texture for visual interest. Feathery asparagus ferns play off succulent green aeonium, grasslike dwarf mondo grass and the broad, spotted foliage of leopard plant. While not evergreen in cold-winter areas, the plants in this Southern California garden would retain their foliage throughout the winter in a mild coastal climate.
Prized for its glossy, kidney-shaped leaves with dappled spots, leopard plant acts like a warm-climate hosta look-a-like and can be used as a standout foliage plant in mixed borders. In colder-winter areas, grow it as an annual or pot it in containers to overwinter in a greenhouse.Boxwood
(Buxus spp.)King of structure. Useful as a hedge, structural backdrop, bed accent or container plant, boxwood is a workhorse throughout the garden. In partially shaded beds, it grows best with dappled-light exposure, such as under tree canopies.
Yew
(Taxus spp.)Evergreen garden walls. In this St. Louis garden, the evergreen and deciduous plantings form tiers of green. Semideciduous hornbeams grow along the back border, with deciduous Japanese maples filling in the lower canopy, and low evergreen yew hedges edged with white-flowering hellebores making up the bottom tier.
Easy to say but go to a garden center and ask for these and they look at you and never heard of any !