Too much sun in your garden areas? Want to create an area of shade to grow shade loving plants like hostas?

It is easy to construct a low cost shade shelter anywhere in your gardens for hostas! I have three shade shelters each built slightly different. How about a quick picture to get the juices flowing:

Structure for Knitted Shade Cloth

Structure for Wooden Lattice

Each section to my shade shelters have 4 4x4 posts as their support. These legs are not visually intrusive. In fact, their presence gives a strong support for other garden amendments like trellises, hanging basket brackets, ornaments, bird feeders, and the list can probably continue indefinitely.

The box of the top is generally square to rectangular. If you are a gifted craftsman you can make any type of shapes like octagons for example. The material for the box top structure I don't like to skimp on because thin warping lumber will distract from your garden appearance. I do not use lumber less than 2x6's. 2x8's may be preferable if you have a long stretch supported by 2 support posts or plant to hand a lot of weight from your shade shelter top. My largest square top frame is made from 2x6x16 treated lumber. Yes, it covers a bit of an area.

The support material for the shade making material (cloth or lattice) varies on what kind of material you will be using for the shade maker. If you are using shade cloth, hanging beams 4 feet apart is more than sufficient. If using lattice, you may want to reduce the minimum distance to probably no shorter than 2 feet.

Showing Beam Attachment for Fabric	Top View of Lattice Shade Structure
Close-up of Beam Hardware Attachment	Knitted Shade Fabric on Top of Structure

My favorite shade making material is KNITTED shade fabric. If it is cut it will not unravel. WOVEN shade fabric if cut must be mended and will unravel in an instance if not carefully maintained. Shade fabric also can be ordered with different shade percentages from anywhere from 5" shade to 90% shade. The higher percentage of shade, the higher the cost obviously because more of the material is required to block to sun.

Wooden lattice is also nice looking, supports probably a 50% shade environment on average, but is must more expensive and needs more maintenance. (Gee, am I showing my favorite material??)

KNITTED shade fabric can be ordered with other amenities. Such as side taping and grommets. I highly recommend that if you are using KNITTED shade fabric, to have to sides taped and grommetted. It is a minimal charge for this generally and is well worth the money and effort.

Knitted Shade Fabric with Grommets and Tape

KNITTED shade fabric can be installed without tape and grommets, but you will need special attachments to grab the fabric to limit attachment stress. This also works well. It is really your preference and how you want the finished product to look.

Grabber Pinches Fabric, Use Nails or Rope To Attach Fabric to Structure

A very important piece of information to consider is the position of the structure to the position of the sun on those host sunny days.  Here is  dramatic effect to show this concept.  It would be kind of embarrassing to have a structure and plants but the shade is not cast on them.  The below picture show dramatically shade and sun position.  The picture was taken mid November in northern Illinois.  During the summer,  most of the ground is shaded.  The grasses which line the fence get plenty of sun.

Note Late Season Shade Position