Oh, and maybe you can grow astilbe ... they hate me, but then, so do rhododendrons. Though oddly enough azaleas generally do fine ... and I do have acidic soil; my blueberries love it, though they might need more sun than you have to do well.

Yes to Astilbe, heucheras, and blueberry family ( you won’t get the berries before the animals do anyway ), and ferns: the Christmas, Autumn, and New York do well in my WNC woods. Others get late summer burnout.

There are some sedge species (Carex) that do well in shade for some visual contrast.

Hydrangea vine is awesome on a fence.

My local nursery had 40% off on azaleas today :-) They're going to have 50% off on astilbe next week, too, so I'm loading up! I picked up 5 azalea cultivars, all with different bloom colors and schedules, so hopefully that will give me some nice color from Spring to Fall.

I love heucheras and have some in other shady gardens, but for some reason I'm not having a lot of luck with dividing them. I might get some more, and maybe some Japanese painted fern, to go between the hostas. I also have a ton of mondo grass that I can put in the front as a border... not quite the same as the carex, but it's free, so...

I love the idea of the hydrangea vine (didn't even know it existed until now!), but I'm gonna rebuild my fence so that might be a project for next year... or the next year, depending on money and COVID.

I'm still not sure about the holly behind the rhodos, though. I need something to balance the height between the 6' rhodo and the 30' trees! LOL Pictures of pruned holly look good, but I've never actually seen any holly in person that's not wild and ugly. Is it an issue of training, or is wild holly actually different from the pretty, pruned kind?

Ulisdone, if you're near Wilkesboro then let me know and I'll tell you which nursery is having the sale :-D

I’m about 125 miles southwest of Wilkesboro, and don’t usually travel that far for plants. :)

I have a number of American Holly trees on my property, but they are old and admittedly kind of knarly looking, but I love them!

Sorry for sideways photo.

I like the pokeweed idea myself...

I like that, too, @ulisdone :-) Since mine are growing wild in dense shade, I think I'll see what I can do... worst case scenario, I don't like it and either move them in a few years or cut them down, right?

My only concern is that I really want them to stop at about 15', not get all the way to 60'! I'm guessing that my wild holly is American Holly, and they apparently range that far :-O But in full shade, I'm hoping they won't get TOO big.

@kitasei2 , I still haven't given up on the idea, honestly. I dug up about 15 large taproots a few days ago, from large ones that were hanging over my fence (mixed in with blackberry vines). I know they're considered a bit of a pest, but they've really been here for several years and haven't been that much of a burden... just in a garden, I would have to prune them every year to keep the growth in check.

I'm kinda thinking that I might plant them, anyway, and if I have enough color next Summer that it's not necessary then I can just dig them back up.

what about a smaller variegated dogwood between the Rhododendrons and the taller trees? Do Japanese Maples grow where you are? they are used a lot here in that situation. I vote no on the pokeweed, been struggling with it for a couple years now. The neighbors let one grow big and go to seed. I hadn't even heard of it before and now I've pulled up hundreds. There is a variegated one though that is ornamental not a noxious weed....

I actually have 2 Japanese maples, but I thought they were full sun / part sun? I have a red Tam (about 15 years old) that's in part sun and hasn't been doing too well for several years, so I thought it didn't have enough sun.

If there's a full shade variety, though, I'm all in! They're gorgeous trees, and fit the appearance of my house and gardens.

Camellias, evergreen ferns, Helleborus, Aucubas, Illicium, Sarcoccca orientalis, Pachysandra, Dystillium, Prunus lauarocerasus 'Otto Luyken'. the list is endless!

Is it sloped? Are deer going to be an issue?

What about a wax myrtle?

I looked it up, and it would look good! But I'm not sure that I have enough sun for it? Google says that it does best in full sun, and needs a minimum of 4-5 hours of direct sunlight. This area has dappled sun most of the day.

This thread is 8 months old now, though, and there's been changes since then!

First, I need to clarify... I meant HYDRANGEA, not Hibiscus!! LOL No idea where that came from :-/

Second, in September 2020 I moved the one rhododendron to the West, then took 2 layers and planted them in between; creating what I hoped would become a wall of flowers. The mature one that I moved isn't doing well, though, and I don't think it's going to survive. Of the two layers, one is doing great but the other looks totally gone.

Behind those, I planted some of the wild American holly. Some are doing well, others not so much. But I think that if I prune them and take care of them, and transplant some new ones this Fall, then in a few years they'll fill in nicely :-)

In front of the rhodos I planted the azaleas, then in front of those I did a handful of bulb flowers, then a mix of astilbe and primrose, then hostas and mondo grass.

It's a little patchy right now, but hopefully it'll look good enough in June to post a pic :-)