I need help knowing which perennial plants will work well in a zone 8 shade garden.

Thank you.

Hi Denise

The Oklahoma extension service has some suggestions about a few proven plants that do well in OK:
http://www.oklahomaproven.org/

plant selection for OK:
http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/...

"planning the landscape":
http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/...

But they seem more focused on "drought-tolerant" than "shade-tolerant".

All I found on their website searching for "shade" was "shade trees".

Thank you. I'm actually looking for a friend that lives down in TX. I'm trying to help her with her garden. Im zone 7 but I need plants for zone 8 and shade.

I might be wrong, but I think that what they call "shade" in Texas, we would call "sunny" in the (coastal) Pacific Northwet.

I can see where you would think that.

I lived over in the Tacoma Washington area straight out of my native home of TX. 90 straight days of dreariness was more than I could handle.

The winters in Germany wre very similar to Tacoma Washington. We move around a lot in the military.

Texas to Tacoma is a major change! Even though both are Zone 8.

I'm always bemused when I hear about Texans pulling out their first crop of tomatoes because they're burning up, at the same time my Zone 8 yard be4comes warm enough at night to leave my first tomato plants outside.

>> We move around a lot in the military.

I should have guessed from "Elgin". Do you make a new garden at each place you move to, or do you have some adaptation to gardening "on the fly"?

BTW, my first "Texas contrast" experience came when I traveled to Dallas-Fort Worth for work. I had been living in New Jersey for years before that. It was astonishing to me that:
1. There were wide open spaces that went on and on, as far as the eye could see.
2. People were POLITE, and everyone called everyone else "Sir" or "Ma'am".
3. It seemed as if everyone was tall and blond.
4. There was room between people wherever they walked.

Then as soon as I flew in to the Newark, NJ airport:
1. Buildings, trees, people and cars were crammed together in 1/20th the space they had in Texas.
2. Rude bozos and selfish jerks abound. No one even knows what "Sir" means.
3. Millions of short, swarthy people covered every square yard.
4. The aforesaid mobs freaking ELBOWED and TRAMPLED their way past, through and right OVER you like a stampede of unusually rude cattle on PCP.

I'm not that big a fan of "manners" in the more urban parts of NJ.

No discrimination between dry or moist shade:
Hosta, Polygonatum, Ferns, Lilium martagon, Ajuga (reptans), Carex morowii, Cypripedium, Rodgersia, Cyclamen, Cornus canadensis, periwinkle, ivy, Hyacinthoides hispanica/non-scripta, Allium ursinum, Buxus, Taxus, Hydrangea, Epimedium, Geranium (nodosum), Dodecatheon (shooting star), Leucojum etc etc...

To make it easier: surf to any online perennial garden store and browse the 'shade plant' category

Thank you for the plant recommendations, I will look them up.

I also noted the change in mannerisms from TX to WA state, and then on to NH. I do like the southern hospitality better.

I've enjoyed gardens in NH, TX, Germany, and now Oklahoma. I learned a great deal gardening side by side with the Germans in one of their communal gardens.

We may decide to hit MO next but there's been no final decision about that.

I lived in Dallas. Zone 8 in Dallas is humid. Fort Worth just a few miles west is dryer. Conroe (Houston suburb) is steamy zone 8, moss will grow on your carpet, there is no dry season, but El Paso is in the Chihuahuan desert! All zone 8, because the minimum winter temperatures are similar. So which plants should be recommended really depends on where in TX they are. If they are in the dry regions, I would recommend High Country Gardens, a mail order nursery. The website has a lot of info.

They are in Georgetown about 20 minutes due north of Austin.

@Ecscuba lives in that area and may be able to suggest plants that would thrive in Georgetown. Also, may know some good nurseries near that your friend can check out.

Check out the Lady Byrd Johnson Wildflower Center at http://www.wildflower.org

There's a wealth of information there and not just about wildflowers. Y'all will be able to find native plants suitable for Georgetown (and shade). Georgetown is just a hop, skip and jump away from Austin where the Wildflower Center is. Might be a fun side trip.

@Arico gave some good recommendations so I won't repeat.

@baabaamilker,
You may want to consider editing your original post to include the information that you are asking about plants for Georgetown (20 minutes due north of Austin), Texas and not for your own garden in Oklahoma.

http://www.kwaliteitsplanten.n...

It's in Dutch, but the Latin names are the same so doesn't matter really

And I found this for Georgetown:

http://www.sheridannurseries.c...

Thank you.