I just finished planting my first shade bed and am grateful that most of it was winter sown. We included the following plants:

hellebores (some WS)
goats beard (WS)
hosta (some WS)
rodgersia (WS several varieties)
foxglove (WS several varieties)
ligularia (WS)
astilbe (WS)
lamium
heuchera (some WS)
lots of fern varieties
jack in the pulpit
ladies mantle
bleeding heart (some WS)
sweet woodruff
wood spurge
lungwort (several varieties)
trillium
ajuga (some WS)
Hakonechloa grass
jacob's ladder (ws)
lily of the valley
foam flower (WS)
balloon flower (WS)
toad lily (some WS)
solomon's seal
corydalis (ws)
geranium (WS several varieties)
anemone (WS)
turtlehead (WS)

I hope this gives you a few ideas to use in your new bed!

Joanne

Astilbe...definitely Astilbe.
It distinctly dislikes too much sun and prefers almost none (at least in my yard)

And ditto on Jacob's Ladder. I Wsed white and purple and both of them are lovely, with nice foliage.

Columbine

Hellebores

Hardy Geranium, but I do it with Lychnis (the kind that Tiffy has). I Wsed some and didn't like how gangly it was. But if I had it with the Lychnis Tiffy did, I would have liked it (and kept it)

Sweet William. My favorite. Love it. Lots of colors and varieties. And it seems to act as perennial in my yard, while also reseeding.

Lamium. I can attest to the fact that it loves shade (it's taking over my shade garden!)

Pansies (some are perennial, some are not, but it seems they reseed readily)

English Daisies (they are early bloomers)

Asiatic Lillies

Here's some pics of my shade garden:

{{gwi:341712}}

{{gwi:341710}}

Netwiz, that is about 30 varieties!!! Holy cow. How big IS your shade garden?

Um, well, I kind of over did it when I was plotting out the bed and ended up making it MUCH larger than I planned. It took 2 months of daily digging to get the rocks out and amend the soil. We have 5 acres with very little full sun so I am learning to love shady plants. Once things start to mature I will have to transplant some things to other, yet to be created, beds. I just don't have the energy left to start them yet, lol.

Joanne

Foxgloves, lobelia, and violets are great and wintersowed well for me. I bought my pulmonaria but that's been a nice shade plant too. Columbine wintersows very easily too. I'm still trying to figure out where to put all of it.

If you want height, Thalictrum. Mine are over 5 feet and bloom in nearly full shade as well as morning sun/dappled shade pm.

Another one for height - in the area that gets some sun - would be Meadowsweet.

A couple I've got which are also quite tall but not winter sown are Cimicifuga and Aconitum. Both are very beautiful and tough plants - disease and pest resistant - and the perfume of the Cimicifuga is to die for. Smells so sweet...

Not quite sure where you are but you are the same zone as I am. Do you have 'cool' or 'hot' summers? You might even challenge yourself and winter sow some Blue Himalayan Poppies. Mine get just a bit of sun in the AM (until 11), and then shade the rest of the day.