Yew. Definitely not Rocky Mountain juniper. Don't plant it so close that it ends up under the spruce, as that won't work out.

How many hours of full sun? Weeping Alaskan Cedars can take some shade, there are some narrow varieties such as Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Van Den Aker'. Yew and Hemlocks are the most shade tolerant.

im not smart enough to know how you define shade [sun what hours of the day] .. nor to know where you are ... how about some leads ...

ken

Toronto - Zone 5, 2 hrs of late afternoon sun - remainder of the day its shaded. Want to add some height (to hide the neighbors yard) and keep things relatively narrow. Planting area is about 6 ft wide - rootball would have to start at under 24" to keep it away from adjacent interlock pavers.

Thank you!

That's shade. 2hrs rules out all except yew & hemlock. Lots of columar yew options, such as Taxus cuspidata 'Columnaris'

Tsuga mertensiana is quite narrow and can tolerate shady locations. I don't have personal experience with them in shade myself. They are absolutely beautiful but my hot humid climate likes to kill them. Tsuga mertensiana 'Bump's Blue' or one of the many other blue cultivars would be nice. Perhaps someone else has experience with them here. Yew may work best though.

Even the most shade tolerant conifers grow thin in much shade - in the darkest planting sites it is a matter of which kinds will survive and make anything like an attractive presentation at all.

Although it is a hemlock Mountain hemlock is also a strictly montane tree in nature, looks out of place when not planted in a conifer collection, rock garden or other scheme of similar tone - any time it is close enough to a taller tree with a different naturalistic character, such as a shade tree to appear to be beneath it, or paired with it in any other way it looks wrongly sited.

Ah, that's a good point Embo. Then again, if you enjoy it, that's all that matters. =)