Can you tell us a bit more?

How much sun and does the whole area have similar light?
What type of soil? Texture (sandy or clay), moisture levels and is supplemental water possible, pH?
What are your color preferences if you have any?
Would you consider a few shrubs or vines on trellises mixed in to give winter interest?
What is your level of gardening experience and how much care do you want to provide?
Are you OK with times that foliage colors and textures predominate?

We just bought this house and Iam not to formular with the soil Ph balances, the whole area has about 3-4 hours of sun in the afternoon before it goes behind the neighbors house, and is a moist area. The soil is mainly clay but, the first 3-4 inches has been worked with. Iris's growing there previously. We plan on tilling the area and working in some good topsoil or manure. Color preferences is not a issue,there is a vine growing in the corner(it's staying) and dont want kind bush or dwarf trees against the house. My experience is alittle average in the garden. I love being outdoors and working in the flower beds. I want to keep the area interesting and full of color during spring to fall, then having some type of back drop so its not dead zone in the winter time.

Without some evergreen bushes you are going to have a dead zone in the fall and winter. You could find some Dwarf conifers.

My shade garden I have some evergreen ferns. Christmas Fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) and Fern Brilliant (Fern Dryopteris erythrosora 'Brilliance'). I do not know if you have tried any Heucleras they are evergreen.

For blooms daylilies will bloom in part shade. I also have bulbs in my shade gardens. You can put bulbs and daylilies and have good blooms from Spring until Fall. A ground cover of Gernanium Roxanne and you will have blooming ground cover until frost. I also like my toad lilies in the semi-shade garden.

Bulbs
Daffadoils
Hyacinth ---Really pick up a bunch of Spring Bulbs.
Late Spring to August plant these bulbs.....
Oriental Lilies
Asiatic Lilies
Trumpet Lilies
Regal Lilies
Tiger Lilies

3-4 hours of late afternoon sun isn't much to work with for blooming plants IMO.

Here's what is planted--and thriving--in my Z6 shade bed:

Phlox divaricata/woodland phlox
Polemonium/Jacob's ladder
Persicaria virginiana/Virginia knotweed
Japanese painted fern
Virginia bluebells
Hosta
Hydrangea
Toad lily
Astilbe
Pulmonaria/lungwort
Hellebore/Lenten rose
Cimicifuga/snakeroot
Alchemilla mollis/lady's mantle
Carex/Japanese sedge
Aquilegia/columbine
Dicentra/bleeding heart
Heuchera/coral bells

The Lenten rose blooms February-April. Woodland phlox, bleeding heart, Jack Frost brunnera and Virginia bluebells are blooming now. The others bloom or provide foliage interest over the course of the growing season with toad lily and black snakeroot finishing out the year in October. Carex/Japanese sedge is evergreen. I leave any flower stems through the winter months but essentially, other than November/December, there's something "happening" in the bed year-round.

Here is how it looks in early May:
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Here it is in mid-September
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I've found corydalis lutea and dicentra eximia to be my best part-shade blooming plants for bloom on and off all season. Some might consider them a bid weedy in that they can seed around when happy, but they're easy to pull and I've made quite a few friends happy with seedling gifts.

The various colored heuchera are great foliage plants for part sun. Their bloom time isn't all that long (though I've found that the plainer green the foliage, the longer the bloom and the prettier the flower) but the chartreuse, purple and caramel colored foliage is lovely year round - since they're evergreen.

Gardenweed, your shade garden is delightful.
kathys3, One bit of general advice: I have learned the hard way that areas adjacent to cement, such as sidewalks or foundations can be a bit alkaline due to leaching from the cement, so if you grow gardenias or Rhodies etc. that need acid soil you may need to use some Holly Tone.
The daylillies and geranium "Rozanne" mentioned above would certainly like afternoon part sun and lots of moisture.
If hosta are happy there, toad lillies and variagated Soloman's Seal will also do well and are so easily divided. In the same conditions I grow Autumn Anemone and dwarf (Pee Wee) Oak leaf Hydranga as well as ferns and hellebores.
Walker's Low cat mint has done well for me in part sun and is also readily available and divides well.

Actually, I beg to differ about the dead zone - I hate most evergreens that are used for landscaping. I don't plant evergreens and I still have winter interest, and some green.

My irises stay green all winter, heuchera stays purple (because that's the type I have), my creeping phlox stays green, as does yucca, herb/eating sage, and others (just in my experience/in my garden). So do many of my groundcover sedums, hens and chicks too. Plus my bluebeard bushes look nice in the winter, though they aren't green per se, and the russian sage is all silvery and pretty even when it's dying back for the winter.

Besides that I have grasses with interesting stalks and foliage I leave up in the winter.

I have many of the plants listed above in my shady areas as well as a few others:
Shrubs:
Rhododendron 'Checkmate', a 3 foot PJM and R. 'Yaku Prince'
Apothercary Rose AKA Rosa Mundi
Leucathoe
Deutzia 'Chardonnay Pearl' and 'Nikko', both short, restrained shrubs.
Hydrangea 'Penny Mac' and 'Endless Summer' though both these are probably too wide for your spot.
Vines:
Climbing Hydrangea/ H. anomala petiolaris likes shade, but it a very large vine and would need something substantial to cling to. I've seen it growing on brick houses and chimneys, but I wouldn't grow it on wood or metal siding.
Clematis - a few will bloom with only 4 hours of sun, especially if they have bright shade the rest of the time. Do a search for Clematis for shade and you should get a lists. I have 'Diana', 'Venosa Violaceae', 'Gravetye Beauty' all growing and blooming in about 4 hours of sun, though they have bright shade the rest of the day.
Perennials:
Polygonatum odoratum 'Variegatum'/variegated Soloman's Seal
Astilbe
Pulmonaria/lungwort
Hellebore/Lenten rose
Cimicifuga/snakeroot
Alchemilla mollis/lady's mantle
Carex/Japanese sedge
Aquilegia/columbine
Heuchera/coral bells
Tiarella/foamy bells
Heucherella (a cross of the two just above)
Vaccinium macrocarpon/Cranberry
Siberian iris
Veronica "Georgia Blue'
Hakonechloa/Japanese forest grass - I grow 'Arueola' a golden form
Carex 'Ice Dance'

Nicoleternity - You must live somewhere with lots less snow than I do. ;>) Most years anything shorter than 4 feet or so aren't visible for much of 3 months, though this year was an exception. My winter interest has to be large shrubs or trees.

nhbabs, about that snow you truly understand. There are months I do not see my sedums,, Coral Bells, or anything that is not 4' - 5' tall for 4 months. I would be depressed if I looked out my window and did not see anything green for months.

The tips of some brown grass if the snow did not pull that down would not do it for me.