Chamaecyparis and Taxus can take more shade than any of the ones that you suggested.

how deep is the shade the rest of the day ... it can be anywhere from cave like to you still have to squint in it.. it matters ...

a pic of the spot might help ..l.

does grass grow with vigor in this area ... the deeper the shade.. and the lesser the sun.. can be figured out by whether grass will grow there.. wispy.. or lush. or somewhere in between ...

what hours of the day is there sun.. sun at dawn/dusk is very different than mid day ... what do you mean when you say GOOD sun???

ken

Tsuga canadensis is shade tolerant. I don’t know how well it will do in MD, but I hear black spruce (Picea mariana) is the most shade tolerant spruce.

In MD hemlocks are hit by the woolly adelgid & not recommended anymore. Norway & Serbian spruces have fairly good shade tolerance. Obviously yews are very tolerant, but all you can get are the usual dwarfs that are small-size spreaders. Rhododendrons are shade tolerant & do well on my lot. Balsam fir, black and red spruces prb'ly not heat-tolerant enough for Z7 MD. Firs in general are fussy trees to grow (they're mostly mountain or cold-climate trees), but concolor fir (and perhaps fraser fir tho maybe too warm for it in z7) seems to grow OK in west MD if NOT in a frost hollow like I am (they die here).

Edit: And I'd agree w/maackia below that white pine has fair shade tolerance -- more than most pines at least.

Edit2: Southern magnolia is also quite shade tolerant & would grow fine in z7 MD.

If you have deer, I'd avoid Taxus. Ken asked the right question, and If it's open shade even something like white pine will grow. I've got a few Fraser Firs growing in partial shade that are doing quite well.

Agree with @Sara Malone Zone 9b regarding chamaecyparis. Radicans and Yoshino are beautiful, shapely and different, and can tolerate "light shade". I have been admiring for a while, but both too large for my yard.

thanks. i guess blue spruce is out

and canaan fir/balsam fir too because they are used to colder or higher conditions.

so that leaves Norway Spruce. also want to plant a holly tree but haven't done research on it yet. looking to plant in gap in middle of photo for screening

The yard is 80 percent sunny from 9:45 to 1, then 25 percent sunny the rest of the afternoon.

Grass grows pretty well.

tall evergreens in background look a little thinner than optimal but have grown ok.

Here's a pic of backyard where I want to plant,, a norway spruce in the front yard where it's sunnier for a couple more hours.

other q - what is best time of year to transplant norway spruce? fall or early spring?

Agree with @Sara Malone Zone 9b regarding chamaecyparis. Radicans and Yoshino

Those names are used for cryptomerias.

In my part of the US arborvitaes, hemlocks and yews are what come up under the trees that reproduce after fire or high winds in the woods here, eventually replace them (in the case of the first two anyway) where and when suitable conditions persist long enough. With spruces and true firs - although also able to reproduce in shade - tending to be even more thin looking when heavily shaded than the preceding are.

Also when I assisted one winter with what was called a gap study in the southern WA Cascade Mountains we were measuring and recording annual growth of Pacific silver fir that had been recently released from suppression by removal of their full sized bethren beneath which they had been forming a sort of shrub layer.

I bring this up because one aspect of the situation was this below head height layer was as old as the main stand they had been living inside of - as in hundreds of years old, yet still shrub sized. Due entirely to the shading of the site, before the gap had been created for the study.

Even though now released from heavy shading all the many different specimens we measured were still growing very very slowly, with the markedly increased sun exposure still not having yet produced a burst of stronger growth.

So, yes, true firs are able to live under other trees, but...

All that said if you are growing acceptable looking lawn where you want to plant (I just looked at your preceding post) that means there is plenty of light for conifers.

A bit old. But, since MD and the southeast has been hit with woolly adelgid, I’d go with an East Asian Hemlock species as they are more resistant to the adelgid and is heat and completely shade tolerant as all hemlocks are.