With only two hours a day of sun I am not sure that the geraniums will flower very well - they tend to prefer quite a bit a sun in order to put out a good bloom.

I did a search on www.perennials.com and they list some geraniums that will tolerate full shade, namely:

Geranium macrorrhizum: 'Bevan's Variety', 'Ingwersen's Variety', 'Variegatum'

Geranium phaeum: 'Album', 'Lily Lovell', 'Sambor', 'Springtime'

Geranium sylvaticum: 'Album'.

Worth taking a look at.

tess

Here is a link that might be useful: Shade geraniums

Maybe in southern zones, they can take a fair amount of shade, but not the northern zone(s) where you are located. Atleast 4-6+ hours of sun is required for good blooms.

I just picked up two Mourning widow geraniums (Geranium phaeum) at Roslyn Nursery by me. They also do a big mail order business, though their mail order reputation (as per gardenwatchdog.com) is mixed. They will be getting fairly similar light (2 hours of direct sun a day -some dappled light after that) to the orignial poster and were highly recommended for that area. (For reference - I also have two helleborus in the same area and they are thriving).

I went with the Mourning widow recommendation based on an article I read in Garden Gate magazine. It spoke, in part, about shade tolerant geraniums & explained that "since many native species of geraniums grow at the edge of woods, in heavily dappled light, many cultivars today will grow fine in smiliar areas." It then recommended Mourning Widow (26 in tall/maroon-purple flowers); Pink cranesbill (18 in tall/small pink flowers); Himalayan cranesbill (18 in tall/violet-blue flowers) and Ingwersen's Variety (12 in tall/pink flowers). They are all reputed to be hardy in the original poster's zone 6 garden.

Hope it helps!

Beth

thank you all so much...i will look at all of the ones mentioned...