People on the other side of my building face west. That means they get the afternoon sun, which means they can grow practically anything that is colorful. My balcony, however, faces east, and only gets the morning sun. In fact, only ⅓ of it gets any sun at all. And I like COLOR. But it’s tough to find colorful plants that will thrive in the ⅔ of my balcony that is in full shade. I finally realized that surely there must be some shade plants for this climate that had leaves that weren’t 100% green. So I set off Sunday afternoon on a determined mission: colorful shade plants or bust, to tweak an American phrase. Below you can see the results. I was quite pleasantly surprised.
*Not all varieties of Coleus do well in the shade. Some, in fact, need full sun, so read the directions. 😉
Zebra's Child 