13 Shade Tolerant Evergreen Trees For Shady Garden Spaces

Christmas holly, or American holly, has dark green prickly, non-glossy leaves and vivid red berries. With little sunshine, it may grow short and multi-trunked with light gray bark.

1 - American Holly

Boxwood, a fast-growing evergreen with four-sided branches, thrives in partial shade. Boxwoods can be pruned into trees, but they are usually grown as evergreen shrubs or hedges.

2 – Boxwood

Colorado Blue Spruce may grow Christmas trees in shady gardens. Though it can develop into a large tree under shade, it will not reach its full height or diameter. 

3 – Colorado Blue Spruce

The Royal Horticultural Society awarded the Award of Garden Merit to Pakistan's national tree, deodar cedar. Many are in parks or on streets.

4 – Deodar Cedar

Not a cedar, eastern red cedar. Juniper-related. It loves fencelines, abandoned homes, and unmowed meadows. Oklahoma and Kansas consider it a prairie threat.

5 – Eastern Red Cedar

Emerald arborvitae grows in partial shade. Though slower and less lush in partial shade, it will thrive in a garden.

6 – Emerald Arborvitae

One of the shade-loving arborvitae kinds is giant. They are an evergreen with tiny, closely packed, scale-like leaves that are shiny green in spring and summer and bronze in winter.

7 – Giant Arborvitae

Golden Irish yew, or “common yew,” needles become chartreuse in fall and winter. The berries are crimson. The canopy of this thin tree is around 2 feet.

8 – Golden Irish Yew

The most shade-tolerant tree, hemlock can grow suppressed in an understory for 400 years. Hemlocks like moist, well-drained soil.

9 – Hemlock

Like many conifers, Japanese Yews have dark green needles with rounded tips that are not harsh or scratchy. Bright crimson berries come from female plants.

10 – Japanese Yew

Although it prefers light, longstalk holly may thrive in partial shade. Once grown, it can tolerate drought but likes humid soil. Highly tolerant Holly should be pruned late January.

11 – Longstalk Holly

The Serbian spruce is narrower than most spruces and has gracefully drooping limbs. White bars under its green needles give it a dazzling radiance like sunset-lit snow.

12 – Serbian Spruce

Shore pine, sometimes known as lodgepole pine, is a small to medium-sized pine tree with dark bark and leaves. Shorter needles than relatives. 

13 – Shore Pine

Also See

13 Different Types of Hardwood Trees For Homes and Gardens