The back of our garden gets a couple of hours of sun in summer and almost none in December. I stopped buying for the garden I wanted and started buying for the one I have, and the seasonal guides on Garden Plants Sale gave me a sensible shortlist. Then I did the boring part and watched the light.

Watching properly means more than one glance. I checked the same corner morning, midday and around four, and the picture changed each time. Dry shade under a big tree is a different job from the damp shade along a north wall, and a plant that shrugs off one will sulk in the other.

Then forget flowers for a moment. Deep shade gives you foliage, and foliage is more interesting than most people expect. Hostas, ferns, heucheras, a few hellebores for the winter. Leaves in green, silver, bronze, some almost black. They hold the border together when nothing is blooming.

Ferns and hostas are the two I would start with. Hostas are tough and come back every year, but slugs love them, so I go out with a torch after rain. Ferns want damp and hate drying out, which means watering through their first summer even when the soil feels fine.

Mulch does the quiet work in a bed like this. Leaf mould, garden compost, whatever you have, laid on thick in autumn. It holds moisture, keeps the weeds down and feeds the soil slowly. I skipped it the first year and spent July with a hose.

Patience is the rest of it. Shade plants grow slowly, and a border like this looks half finished for two or three seasons. Mine still does. Then one spring the hostas come up thick and the ferns unroll, and you stop noticing the gaps.