Shady area in garden - what can i plant?

[RubySlippers]

herbs???

there is some rosemary and lavender already planted there

would other herbs thrive, and if not what would be nice?

TIA

OOh, Lily of the valley , I love them! What a great idea! I'm going to get them! Yay

lily of vallyey is toxic I think - we have this & I make sure kids don't touch it.

try a hydrangea quercifolia then (this from hater of hydrangeas) - pretty white conical flower heads and interesting shaped leaves which go a bronzy colour in the autumn.

thanks Kew - i really like white flowers

cups - thanks for the tip re lily of the vallley

Kew, thankyou for that. Actually, foxgloves are as well now I think of it.
And we spent our childhood making little gloves from them... explains alot

i can't grow mint, it certainly isn't invading my garden.

for your shade (i have lots of shade) you want woodland type plants, so violets that sort of thing. wild strawberries are doing very well in my garden. also clematis if they can climb up to get some sun on them will be very happy with cool shady roots.

climbers are a good idea - i have a lot of fence panels to cover

would honeysuckle be ok in shade as well as clematis?

if its very shady you'll have a problme finding a good flowering climber...

I think honeysuckle likes sun, but cool roots; we've got one on a shady bed, it's very green but not smothered in floweres.
You can get a really lovely lacey climbing hydrangea,it has small floweres and like shade , very hardy too.

thank you so much for all the ideas and tips

i am going to make a list and hit the garden centres

if there is no sun rosemary and lavender will not be happy there so i'd move them. solomons seal is also poisonous.
parsley and tarragon can cope with a bit of shade herbwise, also rocket is better grown in shade as it doesnt run to flower so fast.
is it dry shade like under a tree (a bugger, everything dies, we've got loads of this) or damp shade like caused by a fence or wall? if the latter i second hydrangea, honeysuckle, big leafy things like hostas (slugs destroy em tho) and ferns and fatsia, and woodlandy things like primroses, bluebells. if there is a bit of sun at times fuchsias will do brilliantly, and you can get things like aquilegia, dicentra, astrantia, marguerite daisies to grow too probably. busy lizzies for an instant fix.

With mint, it seems to work if you sink the pot but leave about 3 inches above ground, so that the runners can't just creep along the soil.

Half of our garden is very shady and what survive for me are

astrantia
pulmonaria
alchemilla mollis
pachysandra
astilbe (a new discovery last year)
viburnum (tinus, bodnantensis and opulus)
vinca (but after 7 years it's just made a bid for world domination)
viola
fatsia japonica
leycesteria formosa
euphorbias (but beware of sap which is a skin irritant)
geraniums
arum italicum pictum
rodgersia
filipendula
ajuga
ribes sanguinem did well but grew too big and got the chop

Writing this list has made me realise how many plants you can cram into a very small space!

I have a shady corner (outside my conservatory, so in full view year round).

I have planted:
fatsia japonica, cammelia, japanese anemone, ferns, wide leaf and narrow leaf grasses, etc.

I have uploaded some pics to my profile, it goes from shady to sunny.

(Oh gawd, looking at photos from london makes me so homesick. Spent the day in a blizzard.... )

Alchemilla Mollis is brilliant in shade. It is one of my favourite perennials and I use it a lot.

thank you for more ideas

i have planted some ferns at the weekend and they are looking nice

also gone for some of the hardier herbs mentioned too

i love fushcias -

i need to find a better garden centre i think - the homebase i went has such a small selection