• Bleeding-heart is a shade-loving flower that prefers moist soil.wet bleeding heart image by Michael Cornelius from Fotolia.com
  
  Successful landscape planning involves selecting the plants most suitable for a given growing area. If your yard or property includes moist, shady, low-lying areas such as those along a pond bank or stream, many plant varieties will grow well there. In fact, for some plants, cool shady places with abundant soil moisture will help them thrive and multiply. Your chances of success will be even greater if you plant or transplant native flowering species such as bee balm, bleeding-heart, common rose mallow or white trillium.
  
  

Bee Balm

• Bee balm (Monarda didyma) is a shade-loving plant that likes to keep its feet wet. Growing to a height of about 4 feet, the bright scarlet flowers are a favored nectar source for hummingbirds, particularly the ruby-throated hummingbird -- the most common variety found in North America. Seed is available from many commercial growers. Or, if you have a cooperative neighbor who is willing to give you some of the dried seed heads, simply scatter the seeds atop the soil and wait for them to sprout the following spring.
  
  

White Trillium

• White trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), which is sometimes referred to as either great trillium or white wakerobin, is a woodland flower which blossoms in the early spring. The plants will grow to a height of around 18 inches. They fare well in the moist, humus-rich ground near the base of sugar maples or American beeches. Many states have banned picking trillium blossoms, but you may be able to move the entire plant into a cool damp shady place in your yard. Contrasted against deep-green foliage, white trillium blossoms immediately catch the eye.
  
  

Bleeding-Heart

• Bleeding-heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis) is another shade-loving species well suited to moist soil conditions. Because the plants only attain a maximum height of about 18 inches, many homeowners raise them in a shady north-facing area, along the foundation line. The plants will grow even better if planted beneath a woody shrub such as a honeysuckle, where the delicate pink and white "bleeding-hearts" will be protected from burning sun. The plants may be purchased at many commercial nurseries or rooted from cuttings.
  
  

Common Rose Mallow

• Common rose mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos), also called swamp rose mallow, is a member of the hibiscus family. The showy white blossoms with reddish or pinkish centers are easy to spot because these shade-loving flowers grow to a height of 5 to 7 feet. The plants are native to most of the eastern and southeastern United States. Plant them in moist soil near a stream bank or pond.