What plants thrive with morning shade and afternoon sun?

[momo]

I have a lot of west facing garden areas that get full shade until afternoon and full sun from then on. Most plants that like part shade usually prefer morning sun and afternoon shade, especially here where the mornings tend to be foggy and cool and the afternoons can be very hot. The one redeeming factor is that because of the foggy mornings the sun often doesn't come out until between 9 and 11 am.

I love Hydrangeas, Gardenias, and Rhododendrons but they all suffer without afternoon shade so they aren't appropriate plants for these spots.

Any ideas?

[Kisal]

When I'm looking for plants, I often get good ideas from the National Gardening Association Plantfinder. Just enter all the details, and it will give you a list of plants that might work for you.

I consider it a starting place, and I can take the list of suggestions and use Google to research each one. Once I have narrowed it down to a few choices, I take the names of those plants to a trusted local nursery and discuss them with the professionals there.

[applestar]

In my garden, plants growing well in the situation you describe are:
Roses (less black spot due to PM drying), Sedum "Autumn Joy", Daylilies, Brambles (both raspberries and blackberries), Strawberries, Tansy, Mint, Black-eyed Susans (Rudbekia), Goldenrods, Asiatic Lilies, Grape Hyacinth....

[cynthia_h]

Our street fence faced west in Berkeley. It received no sun until mid-day, and then nothing but sun until dusk.

The portulaca and four o'clocks did very well. The City of Berkeley planted a street tree in our verge (I don't remember what variety), but the tree was always sickly, esp. when the portulaca was doing well...

The portulaca is a succulent; can be treated as a perennial after established.

Four o'clocks aren't perennials per se, but are liberally self-seeding. Ours kept going for at least 10 years and were still doing well when we moved away.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[Kisal]

My house faces due west, and I like to plant nasturtiums out there. They always do really well.

I also have a nice lavender shrub that seems to be thriving on that side of the house, and I plan to put a couple of my peonies out there as well. I had one there years ago that did very nicely.

[applestar]

Kisal, you're right about peonies. I forgot about that because I moved mine last fall. This poor peony was COMPLETELY neglected. All I did for it was to put up supports when the flower stalks started to grow, but it put on a show every year, but it was in the only location I could think of to start a new blackberry patch. The thornless blackberries are taking off, and so are some potatoes I planted in the spring where the peony used to be because the soil was so loose and lovely.