Best New Garden Plants of 2025: Perennials for Shade
Shade gardens are the perfect place to get creative with texture, color, and form, and the new perennial plants for 2025 offer plenty of inspiration! If your shade beds are filled with classics you love, it’s time to shake things up with some exciting new varieties. These introductions bring fresh foliage, unique blooms, and unique performance to even the dullest corners of your garden. Whether you’re reimagining an old favorite spot or adding a new shade border, these plants are sure to shine. Let’s explore the best picks for your garden next year! If you have a shade garden filled with old favorites, check out these new varieties for 2025 that will brighten up your borders.
1. ‘Dreamcatcher’ Epimedium (Epimedium hybrid)
The unusual flowers of ‘Dreamcatcher’ Epimedium have a rose-red and yellow color combination that will add a spark to your shade garden. Its long-lasting flowers sit on tall stems above the mound of foliage, so they’re easy to see and enjoy near a shady path or patio. But this tough perennial is more than just a pretty face. The plants thrive even in dry shade without much effort—just cut back dead leaves in late winter. Plus, deer and rabbits won’t gnaw on the wire stems and green leaves, which take on a bronze hue in cold weather.
2. ‘Frostline’ Prunella (Prunella macrophylla)
In addition to large silver leaves with a lacy silvery overlay, ‘Frostline’ has a chartreuse edge to give your shade garden a special glow. Clusters of small true-blue flowers provide a beautiful display in spring. And deer and rabbits usually leave Brunnera alone.
3. ‘Moonlight Dancing’ Hosta (Hosta hybrida)
Give a sense of movement to beds and borders with this new hosta. It has extra-marginal leaves with a creamy white edge that extends from the leaf tip to the length of the petiole or stem. Hummingbirds often love the tubular white flowers that rise above the leaves in mid-summer.
4. ‘Endless’ Hellebore (Hellophorus hybrida)
If you want lots of blooms that last from late winter to late spring, ‘Endless’ Hellebore is the plant for you. Like many hellebore flowers, the green to white flowers are upright rather than drooping, so they’re easy to admire. Its glossy deep green leaves are evergreen and look great all year round.
5. Nova ‘Cobalt’ Pulmonaria (Pulmonaria hybrida)
Instead of the usual pink to purple flowers, ‘Cobalt’ starts out blue and stays that way until spring. Its silver-spotted leaves begin to emerge as the flowers fade, creating a neat mound of beautiful foliage for the rest of the season.
6. ‘Last Dance’ False Indigo (Baptisia hybrida)
Continue the color in your spring borders with ‘Last Dance’ False Indigo – one of the latest varieties to bloom. The white flowers fade to cream on long, upright stems throughout the year with a vase-shaped habit. Its long taproot makes False Indigo drought-tolerant.
7. ‘Rouge Harlequin’ Peony (Paeonia hybrida)
Extra-attractive blooms make this new herbaceous peony a must-have in any spring border. The large, 6-inch single flowers open in shades of pale pink, with a swoosh of darker fuchsia near the base. It has a large main flower and strong stems with up to four side buds, so you can cut back a few and still have plenty left in the garden.
8. Summerlong Coral Agastache (Agastache mexicana)
Pollinators will frequent your garden when you grow the long-blooming Summerlong Agastache series. It blooms from late spring until frost without needing deadheading. There are five colors to choose from: lemon, pink, magenta, peach and coral, above.
9. Funyella Clematis (Clematis hybrid)
If you have a blank wall or dull fence, Funyella will enhance it. The bell-shaped double flowers with a light grapefruit scent bloom from mid-spring to mid-summer. No pruning is required other than removing winter damage or stray stems.
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