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Plants that grow in shade?

Okay so I really want to plant a garden. But the probelm with my house is we have 3 HUGE trees in the front of our house ... so we don't really get much sun light. We get some but not so much. On the left side of our house we barly get sun, and on the right side we get a little. So any suggestions on plants that I can grow. I'm tired of the front of my house looks so bland. I live in PA

Public Comments

Ferns do beautifully in shade and for color try impatiences.
Coleus grows well in shade, in fact, it has more vibrant colors when grown in the shade than in partial shade or sun. It's more grown for it's colorful leaves, than for any flowers, but the leaves have some great colors (nice red/green contrasts). Hosta is another great plant that does quite well in the shade. It too is mostly grown for its leaves, they can be solid green, or varigated green/white, but they do have some nice purple flowers when they bloom. Foxglove is great in the shade, and it's grown more for its flowers. If you're talking about a veggie garden though, that's very tough, and also mostly limited to leafy veggies such as Lettuce, Cabbage, Spinach, parsley. You may have some luck with root crops such as beets too, but certainly, fruiting plants will not do well at all.
Azaleas do well in the shade, so do many ornamental maples, gardenias, camellias, and coleus.
Hosta's and Astilbe
Impatients grow excellent in low light situations. I had a spot that got less than two hours of sunlight, in the morning only, and the impatients started slow but exploded in size and flowered extensively till frost.
Hi, you didn't list your zone so I'll just list some to consider: Astilbe (false spirea, meadowsweet) Heuchera (coral bells) Erodium (heron's bill) Lamium (dead nettle) Helleborus (lenten rose) Vinca minor (periwinkle) Oxalis oregano (redwood sorrel) Hosta (plantain lily) Pulmonaria (lung wort) Liriope Ophiopogon Viola Pansy Brunnera macrophylla (alkanet, Siberian bugloss, forget-me-not) Ferns Polemonium (Jacob's ladder) Campanula Hydrangea some ornamental grasses Aconitum (monkshood) Dicentra (bleeding heart) Anemone - many to choose from Asarum (wild ginger) Lysimachia nummularia (creeping Jenny, moneywort) Primula (primrose) Sagina (Scotch moss and Irish moss) Lobelia - annual and perennial varieties, lots to choose from Ompahlodes (navelwort) Heuchera (coral bells) Houttuynia cordata 'Chameleon' Glechoma hederacea 'Variegata' (ground ivy) Parochetus communis ( Helichrysum petiolare 'Limelight' (licorice plant) Galium odoratum (sweet woodruff) Epimedium Digitalis (foxglove) Coleus Abutilon (flowering maple) Fuchsia Lonicera nitida 'Baggessen's Gold' (boxleaf honeysuckle) Loropetalum (fringe flower) Sambucus Corydalis - soooo darling! Double check these with a good local nursery to be sure they will do well in your area. Best of luck! :)
Hosta Solomon's seal Arum Italicum Jack in the pulpit Ferns Chinese Lantern toad lily lily of the valley trillium Primrose Lady's Mantle impatients amorphophallus Bleeding heart
ferns will make you house look a bit more alive. ferns can grow in most climates likt the arrow leaf which is a perrenial fern and can survive -30 F also cannas. these wont bloom with out sun, but the "topicanna" has colorful leaves as well as "begal tiger". just the large leaves alone will add interest and will add color. also impatients will grow well in shade and bloom well with some plant food.
Boston Fern, But it invades quickly
impatiens hostas begonias caladium