"Todd J." wrote in message
...
When looking at plants and the enviroment, I have some grey areas I
need cleared up:

What defines partical shade as opposed to partical sun? Are they the
same?? How many hours is needed for either condition?

How many hours is "full" sun considered?

Thanks.



Just to complicate things even further for you, G location also plays a
big part in deterniming how many hours of sun are sufficient for a "partly
sunny" or "shady" location. The further north a location is, the less
intense the sunlight is, so more hours of it are required for sunlovers. A
rose that will do well in only 4 hours of sun here in the South may need 6+
hours further north in order to be able to bloom well.

The same goes for shade lovers. A hosta that may survive fine in MN with 4
hours of direct sun, but shaded the rest of the day, will burn to a crisp
here in MS with the same amount of sun. Heuchera are mostly shade plants
here, and can be sun plants further north., for another example.

There is also and East/West bias to the sunlight intensity as well. The
Eastern half of the US (+ the PNW) has more frequent cloud cover, thus
reducing the amount of direct sun received by plants on average.

So, although "full sun" is usually talked of as 6+ hours every day, some
plants that need full sun can be happy with less hours than that in the
desert SW. And, as for the "partly sunny/partly shady" bit of approximately
2-4 hours of sun, that needs a location tweak as well. Figure out where you
are on this sunlight intensity scale, and then try to roughly match a plants
stated needs with your version of sun or shade. It also helps to ask local
gardeners what works for them.

Location is, once again, everything.

Sunflower
MS 7b