The message .com
from Rosalyn contains these words:

Some wonderful ideas. Just been browsing google images to look at
these suggestions.

Mulu is near me, so might well go and chat to them. Crocus have a
jungle bed suggestion, but not necessarily shady or hardy.

thanks!

Umm, not tropical, but I fill my shady garden with Impatens [Buzzy
Lizzies] and they give me lots of rich colour for months. You can see
some of them on my web page -
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/bharwo...den/index.html - it has
changed quite alot since those pictures were taken though. I need to
get some new ones, especially the front, it looks more like a jungle
right now!

The rest of the site is mainly taken up with either Zetnet meetings or cakes!

Beryl

Don't forget the bamboo. Most Fargesia, Thamnocalamus, spp grow well in shade and are TRUE clumpers so they won't go running off. And you can get a range of culm colours in the Fargesias: many like murieliae and dracocephala and utilis are green; nitida is grey-black; scabrida is bluish, and jiuzhaigou and rufa are RED. F. rufa is very small. (dracocephala and rufa have been recently renamed, but are still sold with these names; juizhaigou is sometimes described as a variety of nitida). Thamnocalamus Kew Beauty will also go red, but only in sunshine.
I saw a beautiful shade garden where there was a round stone feature with coloured gravels and a F nitida growing out of the centre, it was stunning.

Most Phyllostachys need sun, so your black bamboo won't go black in the shade, nor your golden bamboo go golden. Also they are often more spreading than the seller will tell you. And especially stay away from sasa and indocalamus and pleiobastus and yushania etc, they spread fast, unless you are willing to contain them with serious civil works.

Cordyline and phormiums won't like it shady.

More nice shade plants:
tricyrtis (toad lilies) - purple flowers in late summer/early autumn on interesting stems, highly recommended by me
trilliums
cyclamen