Pacific NW?

The Clematis armandii and moss would certainly imply moderately mild and damp. I'd just fill the whole bed with more Asarums, ferns, Hellebores and other cool shade happy plants.

Yes, Seattle. We tried a garden but not enough sun!

Plenty of great shade plants for a Seattle area garden like this! In addition to floral's great suggestions, I'd also consider hostas, brunnera, shade grasses, pieris, sarcococca and skimmia. If enough light and space, maybe a bigleaf hydrangea

Thank you!

Absolutely. Shade is no barrier to a lovely garden.

My own tiny garden is pretty gloomy.

To block the view of the car, you need tall perennials or a shrub. Your path is narrow and you have a full shrub on one side. Another shrub or tall perennial might make the path seem narrow. You might consider adding the shrub midway from the big tree to the stone column and removing the shrub on the other side of the path directly across from the new shrub.

If you don't do that, I might recommend a Goatsbeard, which is tall, flowers in shade and native to a fair amount of the US. They are hardy, so you can transplant it if it isn't working for you. Another option to hide the car is a shrub/grass/tall perennial much closer to the car. If you changed your path for a curved path, you could place shrubs to completely hide the care.

It would be helpful to have a picture in Spring, as it looks like you have some plants in what is now a barren stretch of garden, under the tree. I like ferns for shade gardens. You can add heart-leaf aster, which will bloom in shade.

In this example, the two shrubs at different points in the curve effectively block what a straight path would show.

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We have a shade garden under a big cedar tree where grass didn’t grow well. It is filled with of hydrangeas and hostas and ferns. In the spring a good power wash and clean up of the area will help. You could also fence the front so that you don’t see the car?

Thanks, I like idea of changing the path to curve (that photo is lovely) and also a partial fence… don’t want a gate because going in an out (with trash cans, gardening stuff) will be a bit annoying. What about some big rocks somewhere or other hardscaping?

Also if you want an actual structure to separate side yard from car area you could do a fence just part way across on one side and a shrub or other partial fence maybe 5 ft closer in and on the opposite side, to give illusion of enclosure without the full barrier. The curved path could still be part of this layout, as well.

Side gardens are often shade gardens because they tend to be situated between two houses or two buildings, thus creating shade.

Do you need a pathway on which you can easily wheel garbage cans and the like? If not, then I love the idea of large stepping stones to create a path.

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I like it when a side garden gives you a sense of progression, of carrying you to another space. It is helpful to see repeated shapes, and make your eye gaze to the distance. It is also really nice to have spilling over plants that somewhat obscure the pathway so it isn't just a prim and trim straight line.

This is not your climate, but the series of arches is really nice.

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I like the idea of breaking up the planting with very large boulders or large urns like this one:

This looks like a good list of shade plants for the Pacific NW. You can even get some color in too.

https://www.swansonsnursery.com/shade-plants

Thanks, love these ideas... I do need to be able to get the garbage cans down the path but it would be nice to have something other than those lattice pavers..the less symmetrical path and the idea of boulders I really like. I think I'm going to go to the dirt exchange and see if they have boulders at a reasonable price!

This is our side, before garden was planted, we bring the yard waste back and forth with ease.

Find out if your local garden place offers free landscaping help if you buy the plants from them. I had to redo my entire front garden when I bought my house and got a good plan that way. It has evolved over the 10 years we’ve been here, but they were extremely helpful.

or

Oh my gosh! Thank you Celery! This looks exactly like my yard...wait, you photoshopped this, OMG! that is amazing! This looks so, so good...exactly what I want. The one with the flowers is really lovely although I love boulders and that would be less maintenance for sure. I can't thank you enough! Chris

A wall of yew shrubbery against the back wall would hide and soften the view. Add some box shrubs nearer to the walkway and you would have that classical English garden look

Wanted to update everyone… going to do a curved path but too expensive so will wait til next year but here’s what we did so far.

This is developing into a lovely space!

What an extremely positive change! Love it

Thank you!

Wow! Your updated photos are terrific. You’re doing some great landscaping already.

Looks very nice. Thanks for sharing the progress!