This gets a bit tricky. Lots of great groundcovers for heavy shade, but few that remain very flat and low growing and suitable for planting between flagstones. Two that come to mind are Corsican mint (Mentha requenii) and baby tears (Soleirolia soleirolii). Both require evenly moist conditions and are a bit tempermental. They may not be fully evergreen in your climate (baby tears acts semi-herbaceous in my zone 8, pretty much disappearing in winter and returning well in spring). You might find it easier just to allow a woodland moss (not Scotch or Irish - these are not true mosses and require more sun) to fill in and grow. Or fill between the pavers with crushed shells, gravel or even decorative ground landscape glass.

Oh, shade, now we're talking my experience. Crops grow slower, yields are smaller, less weeding & watering with mulch, and great spots for cool season veggies rather than corn, peppers, beans. We build the soil well with lots of organic matter including regular additions of used coffee grounds for mulch (though not near the lettuce greens or you'll be washing grounds out of the lettuce all the time. That corner would look lovely done up potager style with edging and ornamentally arranged vegetables & flowers. swiss chard, bright lights chives, garlic or regular pansies & calendula for color & salad additions greens, spinach & lettuce Corrine

Thanks for the generous suggestions, everybody. bubba62, I'm concerned that you're right about bletillas and hellebores (especially the caulescent ones) not getting enough sun to flower in areas like what I'm working with, and neither genus has a lot of ornamental value without flowers. Iris japonica is an excellent recommendation and a good example of exactly the kind of tip I was looking for. It's a plant that I've never grown in my yard, but that I've always admired elsewhere. I think it will provide nice semi-evergreen foliage, occasional flashy flowers, and kind of a spreading groundcover effect, even in dark shade. Cool. I also agree with your assessment of Illicium henryi as a choice selection, but unfortunately, I don't know of any nurseries around here that offer them in anything larger than 3-gallon pots, so I'll probably have to stick mainly with my old standby, I. floridanum 'Halley's Comet.' Tricyrtis, Saruma, Asarum, Disporum, Disporopsis, Speirantha (my favorite), Trillium, etc., etc., etc. are all worthy suggestions, but for now I think I'm going to focus just on larger, more substantial plants as I lay out the structure of the new beds, and then go back later and fill in the gaps with smaller little perennials like those. jeff_al, I agree completely about Pachysandra procumbens, although I find its slow spread almost as frustrating as the aggressively rapidity of P. terminalis. Still, a better all-around choice, and I've put it on my list. ncdirtdigger, leatherleaf viburnum is another great example of exactly what I was looking for with this post. It's another plant that I have never grown and had sort of forgotten about, but I have seen it prospering even in very heavy shade. And I think it's really pretty, too, although I've known some people to be repulsed by the droopy, wrinkly texture of the foliage. Aucubas were already on my list, but definitely worth another mention as indispensable elements of the deep shade landscape in this part of the country. I'm not sure if winter daphne will get enough sunlight to flower in any of the areas I'm working on, but I love it so much that I think it I'll give it a try. If nothing else, I know that it's one of the few shrubs that won't be bothered at all by the extreme root competition that it will face from the maples and sweetgums in the wooded portion of the new beds. birdannelady, aren't fatsias terrific plants? I can't imagine having a dark, shady garden around here without it. I've already bought and planted two in my new beds, and may get more as the layout continues to evolve. Which variegated osmanthus do you have? My usual go-to favorite one is 'Goshiki,' which is gorgeous in light to moderate shade, but loses a lot of its color in heavy shade. Maybe other variegated varieties are better-suited to these conditions. What kind of acanthus are you growing? I like acanthus, but I don't really think of them as plants for dense shade. But I don't have a lot of experience with them, and I haven't really experimented with them very much. You're also exactly right about competition from tree roots being as big a problem as the shade itself. And I too have faced the catch-22 of the situation where each and every thing that we as gardeners do to provide good conditions for the roots of the plants we plant (soil amendments, fertilizer, supplemental watering, etc.) also end up promoting the roots of nearby trees to invade the hole and compete with your new plant. Some trees seem to be particularly bad (magnolias, river birches, and the worst: red maples), but most trees pose this problem more or less. It's a conundrum that I've never solved if you have any tips about how to cope with that paradox, I'd love to hear it. Nonetheless, I'm a big fan of edgeworthias, too, and in fact I bought one the other day for the new bed. Hopefully I can find a spot for it where it'll hold its own. Anyway, thanks again for all the help. I've begun acquiring some plants, but I continue to add to my list of others to consider for inclusion. In a lot of cases, I think the thing to do is just to find which plants will work there through some trial and error. But if anybody has any more suggestions or tips, please keep 'em coming. I really appreciate it.

Posted by Jean Ramseur - 4: I have an area where there are Basswood trees. Only certain plants will grow in this area, hostas, maidenhair ferns, Dodecatheon, uvalaria and aquilegia. I cannot get dicentras and pulmonarias to grow well. Ronald Conboy Fl/9b: With certain trees, because of dense top roots, or chemicals released, some plants won't be able to grow. The soil around Oak trees is acidic, and non-acid loving plants won't do well there. Barb Mich z5: Basswoods have huge leaves, very dense shade. Bleeding heart (Dicentra)likes open shade. They may do fine if there is an opening so they get more reflected light. Another option is to 'raise the crown' of the basswood, that is, cut off the lower limbs so more light can penetrate. Louise z5 MI: I hate mowing around trees so I killed the grass and planted five kinds of ferns, hosta, pachysandra, lamium,lily-of-the-valley, trillium, foamflower, sweet woodruff, crocus, jack-in-the-pulpit, false solomons seal, pulmonaria. The only things doing real well are the wildflowers, hosta and sweet woodruff.