Your local university extension service or county extension service is your best source for answering your questions. They have expert information for your specific location and far better than any forums. Maybe some folks in your location are here and can help as well.

Also, since this forum is a bit slow, you can also ask on the Shrub Forum or Perennial Forum. Those are pretty active.

tj

Well still haven't closed on the house. Looks like I won't have much time for planting after.

The property is shady, very much so. I decided to go to google maps, satellite view, and copied this. I'm laughing at myself now.

There will be sun along the driveway. But mostly, I'm not going to be able to do much gardening at all. Those trees are mostly pine, and very tall. Now my sig other thinks we can still garden. He googled for shrubs that flower in shade. But I know they dont look anything like to online photos. Shrubs grow slowly in shade, and flower maybe, but not profusely.

What do you think?

It is certainly possible to grow flowering plants below a canopy of tall pine trees, though your cold climate will limit your choices. Here is a picture of my next door neighbor's stand of pines, which are not high but are also not very dense:

Lots of native flora under there. His trees look like crap, though, which brings me to the second point. You don't want create too much competition for resources or the pine trees will suffer. Looking at your satellite photo, I suspect there are areas where there is room for shrubs and perennials, and areas where there is not enough space between the trees.

Another good resource for you to research plants is the Monrovia plant catalog, which can filter plant choices for climate zone and light needs and lots of other things like deer resistance and even bloom color(look for "advance filters" at the bottom of the page). Monrovia's zone parameters are often too optimistic though, so check your choices with other sites like the Missouri Plant Finder to be sure they are cold hardy.