Hosta and hellebores! Two of my favorite shade plants. I love her hers too but some require a bit more sun than your area might be getting. Do you have a deer problem though? If so, hosta is deer candy. If you can wait to plant in the fall, daffodils are a good choice for some spring blooms.

Edited to add, spreading Japanese plum yew is a good choice for an evergreen shrub that doesn't need much sun.

Daffodils and Siberian squill. So pretty together! I've been hearing that squill is invasive, true that it's non-native, but it's a slow spreader and just so pretty.

Would you consider a council ring for the fire pit? They are very Midwestern, Jens Jensen. Here's the one I grew up with, so many happy memories surround it.

Crocus are pretty when in bloom, I have a large patch, but after blooming the foliage will remain until mid-summer or more. After several years it will look like a grassy patch in your flower bed until foliage dies back and virtually disappears. You won't be able to plant anything in that spot lest you dig up the bulbs.

Also grape hyacinth are my nemesis. They spread and can pop up most anywhere one at a time. If you must plant them, try to dead head them before they set seed. Unless you like them en mass, keep them in check by digging up the bulbs and "bulbets" of strays.

Bpath that is so fab! Right now we are going low tech with the fire pit because we have so many other things going on/projects for the yard. I've seen so many gorgeous examples. But we just don't have the dough right now and not sure we want to invest it in a space we really aren't that enthusiastic about staying in long-term.. I'm trying to get the most bang for my buck. In reality, my meditation garden will probably be stuff I can transplant, salvage or get donated from friends, other than a few exceptions. But hey, I'm stuck at home and a girl can dream . . .

My dream fire pit has bluestone pavers all around it and colorful Adirondack chairs made out of recycled plastic, or cozy fancy park benches, or best of all, benches made out of poly sealed large tree stump sections! My real life one has a collection of odd salvaged mismatched chairs.

Hellebores fascinate me, and I haven't yet got into growing them. Not due to not liking them, just due to space issues. My friend grows them and has been posting some gorgeous photos of them in her garden on FB I could see them as a focal point in a pot! Your post did get me thinking also about maybe some ferns, I don't have those anywhere else in my yard either . . . those I would have to find and buy though . . .

I have a deer problem but try to stay on top of it with spraying deer repellent.

Yes Schoolhouse, even with a layer of plastic, gads of rocks and me constantly digging and pawing at the soil, raking, etc., some grape hyacinth bulbs managed to survive/hide away and popped up this spring. I'm not sure I should be encouraging them if I want to plant other things in that space . . .

Bleeding hearts like shade, and they are native to Japan. They are such a delicate and pretty early spring flower.

I love astilbe in a shade garden. Beautiful with hosta.

I could definitely do a spiral path around the garden leading to a bench within it! Then the next project would naturally be a garden for viewing opposite the bench, which happens to be the back of my house and deck! That too is a big rock pile right now! The beds around the house and deck were also "mulched" with rocks. Not my biggest problem since I'd rather not have a lot of vegetation up against the house anyway. But they are also the subject of much musing by me. I sort of want a little fairy garden around my deck, since I could see it from my screened in porch . . . the yard is so buggy with mosquitoes, I won't be sitting outside in it many months of the year. Fall and spring.

I do have a small hosta bed in one reclaimed spot against the house.

Oh, the spiral path is wonderful.

Ferns. There are many different kinds, but some can be invasive.

I love Lady's Mantle. I think it grows either sun or shade, or it does here. Not sure where you live, but some of the things you mention also grow here. What I love about Lady's Mantle is how the dew or a raindrop glistens on the leaves like diamonds. I also love the folded origami look leaves when they first begin to appear and open.

I love Lady's Mantle! I had it in my tiny row house yard back in PA. Loved the look of dew or rain on the leaves!

Bleeding heart is another brilliant idea, since it was a favorite of my Mom's, and also how my heart has felt ever since the day she died, and also hardy, deer tolerant and beautiful. I already have hosta, and I have to say they are nice planted in drifts, but not that exciting to look at and contemplate on a small scale. I had "Guacamole" in my PA yard, wonderful evening scent. I have some up against the house, but I have been planning on adding "Angel Wings" hosta or some such variety, "Guardian Angel" or whatever, to the memorial garden. Would match in a lovely way with the Bleeding Heart for a little montage. I already have some heuchera to round out the design. I would need something to pop up in fall when the bleeding heart dies away, maybe astilbe or a small goat's beard. Bluebells or a gentian would be nice in spring and fall too. I can't think of another fall shade bloomer off the top of my head . . .

Have you considered succulents? Not sure of your planting zone, but I love sedum ”Autumn Joy” for its year round look. Super easy to grow and spreads nice. Divides nice. Turn your rocky area into a rock garden!

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I have these succulents under larger pots for the shade. They’ve escaped their container and are expanding into the rock which is fine by me.

I have no idea why these 2 photos are sideways. Sorry I am not able to get them rotated.

I love sedum Autumn Joy, but it loves sun. The PO planted some along the north side of the house, it's a nice design that rotates thru pink shades all year. But the sedum was too far back. We moved it forward just one foot so it would get sun, and it finally gives forth that beautiful color.

I am using the rocks for a "rock garden" of sorts in another area of the yard. It's the piles and piles of pebbles that are causing a problem. I'll take some photos, as I am going to be outside most of today. We are averaging about one day per week when the weather isn't dreadful here! Today is it!

I love sedum in so many ways but it really needs sun. My sunny flower garden in the front is currently maxed out. Perhaps another year I will build another sunny spot garden but right now my main focus is on the back in the shade. It's a whole interrelated project--redoing the deck and re-landscaping around it, the meditation/viewing garden to be viewed from the deck and porch, and then the adjacent fire pit and lastly a rain garden along the property line to absorb roof runoff from the back of the house . . . oy vey!

In my 6a/5b shady garden I have lotsa hosta, astilbe (but they like water and fry up without it), creeping woodland phlox, Clumping campanula (not aggressive), Japanese forest grasses, Japanese maples (I particularly love dancing peacock), yew, thread leaf falsecypress (in a sunnier area), rhodo, azalea, mountain laurel, geranium biokovo and elk horn cedar As well as Solomon’s seal, lady’s mantle (a little too aggressive for me), several types of ferns, goatsbeard and lungwort and spiderwort - also too agressive for me. If I were doing a Japanese inspired planting I would do mass plantings of lower perennials surrounding a shapely bush or tree instead of doing a bunch of different perennials clumped together. But I clump!

I’ve also heard people get good results with mossing up their boulders by taking some local moss and blending it in a literal blender with buttermilk and then spraying it on the rocks. Haven’t tried it yet but would like to.

Variegated dwarf elkhorn cedar ( Thujopsis dolabrata ‘Nana Variegata’) has been a REAL showstopper for me. Easily one of my favourite garden plants. The rhodies and azalea actually like sun (and acid soil which I have) so they’re protesting the shade a bit and becoming leggy but not too bad. My garden has HEAVY shade once all the deciduous trees leaf out. Japanese forest grass is a bit slow to grow but absolutely gorgeous at full size and so pleasant in the breeze. creeping woodland phlox is a lovely viney groundcover, tough and puts up cute little purple flowers all season long. I also have some clumping (Fountain) bamboo - not doing much for me but would sound and look beautiful in The right spot and doesn’t run. Emerald spreader yew would be a good substitute for low pines/junipers.

most of the plants I listed like/prefer/tolerate acidic soil so you may need to substantially remediate your soil to do a good shady Japanese forest type garden, depending on soil type.

Behold the FUBAR that is my back yard, and the project to which I have dedicated the next five to six months of my life to fixing and completing. The problem with just making a rock garden out of this shady spot under a red oak tree is that underneath about a ten inch layer of soil, rocks and pebbles, is a layer of impermeable black plastic. You might be able to make it out on the left side of the tree looking at the photo. This mess was slowly strangling the tree roots and makes it impossible to grow rock garden plants because it doesn't drain properly due to the plastic. On the right, you can see the area I managed to clear of rocks last fall, with a few plants cropping up. On the left, you can see "pebble-gate" the piles and piles of little pebbles left from me washing and sifting the larger rocks and moving them to our fire pit area. The shade garden area under the tree will be enlarged, right now the goal is just to clear the rocks so eventually the boulder border will be larger.

The other photo is the view of the back of the house, as would be seen from someone sitting in the garden. That's all rocks too. We cut down overgrown, invasive euonymous that were there.

Last view is of the fire pit, which is also still in progress, and you can see the deck that needs reworking and is also surrounded by a similar rock bed. The fire pit is the eventual home of the rest of the rocks from under the oak tree. Now if every day would just be as dry as today I could make more progress! Otherwise, I am cooped up inside (although plenty of projects there too) musing . . .

I don’t have any further suggestions, but wanted to say - just keep plugging away at the gravel pit. The PO of my home had tons of lava rock in all the beds. It took quite a few years before I could confidently say ”it’s gone!” When the grands were younger I used to pay them to pick up the lava rock. One beach pail of rock = $2. A bargain at that! Now they are older and have caught on to my ways. 😊

If it weren't for social distancing, I'd pay the neighbor kids. They are home and bored anyway!

The rocks remind me so much of a labyrinth which is very meditative. I made a temporary one many years back out of just raked up grass and I enjoyed it for a whole season.