Shady patches and colour

[daftwit]

Please can anyone advise on plants to put into shady patches ? I would like some colour, ground cover too if poss, easy maintenance and reasonable cost !! Hope that is not too much to ask for....... Thanks.

heuchera, begonia (you will need to lift the tubers in winter)
blubells, solomons seal, cyclamen, bergenia, hosta and helebores will all be happy in the shade.
Bulbs like blubells, solomons seal and lily of the valley are pretty much maintenance free. Just plant them in the auterm and they will come up year after year. Heuchera plant and feed and divide if they start getting bigger than you want. Hosta will attract sluggs so unless you want to feed the local slug population you will need to use pellets. Helebores will give you some lovely winter flowers.

Thanks for starting the thread daftwit and the reply cantspel as I was just about to post something similar. I would love an English cottage garden with loads of colourful flowers, roses, honeysuckle etc, but what I have is a very shady, north facing garden, full of shrubs and a mahoosive apple tree. I am going to look into all those plants.

We already have lily of the valley and they are pretty, but apart from that it is all very green.

Many perennial geraniums are happy in shade. Liriope muscari is good too.