Hi and welcome, Carol. We need to know your location to recommend plants that will work for you. If you could fill in your profile with your city/state/country then it will come up every time you post, in the upper right corner. Just a zone doesn't cut it for recommending plants.
What a very pretty outlook. Dry shade is a bit tough for starting new plants especially where there will be competition from tree roots. Is there a water supply out there so you can water the new plants regularly until they get established?
Down side to that is if you live somewhere that is normally quite dry, watering the new plants will also attract the deer.
