I’d like some advice on shade tolerant or good understory plants. Like many people here, my dreams are bigger than my land. There are several similar threads like: Sun requirements for fruit trees but I want this focused just on quality not vigor or quantity. I plan to use the list from Ross as a baseline, but would like other’s experience and opinions. What I care most in shade tolerance is not consistent vigor or harvest amount, but fruit quality. I am in the north east in 7a.
For example, will cornelian cherry fruit reliably in partial shade or full sun? Will the quality be impacted or just the quantity and the overall vigor of the plant? I have heard their fruit quality, like the pawpaw, will not be significantly affected while something like a blueberry will be much less sweet. I understand a pawpaw will grow much slower in the shade, but I’m not sure how true the advice is for fruit quality, or how much it depends on the cultivar.
I am particularly curious for several plants I plan to grow:
Blueberry
Brambles (raspberry, Wine Berry, European dewberry, Marionberry, loganberry, boisonberry, tayberry, thimbleberry, etc)
Cornelian Cherry
Dead Man’s Fingers (already a shade tolerant plants from my minimal research)
Elderberry
Fig (any variety)
Gooseberries
Grapes (any variety)
Jujube (Chinese)
Lingon berry (shade tolerant from my understanding)
Maypop
Melon
Paw Paw
Peppers
Persimmon (American or asian)
Pineapple Ground Cherry
Strawberry
Tiger Nut (Chufa)
Tomatoes
Ullucus/Mashua/Oca
From my understanding, all of these will benefit from full sun, but which will still reliably produce high quality fruit with less light?
In Kansas, our sun is too hot to plant things like gooseberries in direct sun. Honeyberries and others cannot grow in our full sun areas. Akebia can grow in the shade here like maypop. Things like grapes should be full sun.
As @clarkinks mentioned the things I have in shade I’m really zone pushing
I have gooseberry, currant, honeyberries, fuchsia, pawpaw (not pushing just only spot I had left) and Chilean guava which seems to be the trick for this plant to survive here. My blueberries are also in more shade than they would likely prefer. I have a couple citrus rather shaded also, as the guy from green dreams grows them as an understory plant so figured I would try a couple. A couple large live oaks are in my backyard which cover all afternoon sun so similarly I’m using the space even though it’s suboptimal. But you could maybe grow some things outside of your zone where the shade would be their benefit.
Zone 8b cool summer Pacific Northwest: in my experience, hazelnut, mulberry, quince, elderberry, goumi, arctic beauty kiwi, currants, and honeyberry are good bets for less-than-full sun conditions. Gooseberries for me get rocked by sawfly larvae, and more so when not in full sun.
I’m in Maryland 7b, my one gooseberry that’s in partial shade does great. I have 2 in full sun and 1 does ok, the other one not so much.
My honeyberries are absolutely deep fried by end of June/July and basically drop all their leaves. There’s a whole honeyberries thread on here.
My clove currant does ok in full sun as long as I water it all the time. My Primus I planted last year is in about 80% sun and didn’t grow much but did survive.
My gooseberries behind a taller plant, type shade, barely grew in a few years. The gooseberries on the other side of the plant grew very well. So I wouldn’t put gooseberries in shade again.
I think if they are situated to receive some morning sun and sheltered from afternoon sun they will be happy. In warmer zones at least. Mine get dappled light but a good couple hours of morning sun. Seem to be thriving against the chicken run, I put stuff there which if I don’t like it’s easy to strip it for the chickens.
Mine in shade is similar, it’s behind a dogwood. So it gets pretty much dappled sun and no hot heat, and then I think full sun from like 2 till 6 or 7 during the summer.
The biggest issue I think for us in the hotter zones is them baking from the sun.
Rabbiteye blueberries do quite well in shade, fruiting heavily. The flavor is a little less sweet than more full sun. That’s one thing you will find with many fruits living with less sun.
Any ribes will fruit well and taste good in partial to close to full shade. And of course pawpaws will produce good fruit in a shady situation, but much less quantity than in full sun. American persimmon will eventually grow out of the shade, much more slowly than in the open
Blueberries do very well with a good amount of shade. They may take longer to start, but still do very well. Figs and Mulberries will also fruit with no problem. With most plants, you will get less fruit than full sun, but will still do well. Grapes will fruit with no problem, but you will likely battle things like black rot all the time, because they don’t get that constant sun to dry them off.
Interesting - I heard blueberries will not only be less in quantity, but also will be more sour in shade than in full sun. Do you have a comparison from your experience? This would be great because I can plant my blueberries in the shade if this is true and move the best ones to the best spots!
I heard for oranges that its heat and not sun that makes them sweeter. Not sure if blueberries are the same. Obviously its hotter in the sun than in the shade, but I wouldn’t expect a drastic swing in flavor unless your shade is significently cooler than your full sun.
Eh, the best blueberries I have are from my yard. I get buckets full of them. Would I get more if I wasn’t surrounded by 60ft tall trees, probably. They do surprisingly well with just a few hours of sun a day, as long as you get your soil somewhat acidic
Some blueberries do better with shade then others. Unfortunately I don’t have a list. I have three in partial shade. On died, one produces very little fruit and one produces well. Unfortunately they aren’t labeled.
