Half-barrell partial shade garden?

Hello,
I am looking to do a little bit of gardening- something nice and easy to bring some color to this place(a nice-size corner yard with no gardening at the moment)!

I have 3 huge oak trees in the middle of the yard, and many more tall trees in neighbor's yards across the street that also shade my yard. Would you call this shade Dappled Shade?

But I do have one corner where a dead oak was taken out by the town, and I now have partial sun there (3-4 hours of sun in the morning, until the sun moves and the trees hide it).

What I would LIKE to put in is a rose or two- my favorite flowers. Not looking for a complicated design, just a couple of plants to bring some life to the yard... (I do have a yellow dog-plant, too! :-) )

My questions are:
Can roses (or anything!!) live in Clay soil? This is north-shore Long Island we're talking about...
What would you put in half-barrel pots in partial sun? I am wide-open to ideas! But if you can think of a rose that wouldn't mind living in a big pot, let me know!

Any other ideas for partial-sun would be greatly appreciated. Last year I planted some foxgloves and ferns in the backayrd, but they did really awful. I think they didn't get enough sun back there, so this year I want to focus on the small part of the front yard where there is more sun!

Thanks in advance for any help!
Noa

Noa, There are rose mavens on the Rose forum who know all there is to know.m You may want to post there.
In my novice opinion, I would think the clay would be alright if it didn't stay wet. You could also ammend it a bit.
Dave

This should help
http://w3.goodnews.net/~kkrugh/rose/shade1.htm

Hey neighbor - how about some impatiens? You have bloomin color all season.

Thank you both!

I did have some impatiens last year, they did okay but were by no means impressive or dazzling like I have seen in some pictures...

I will check out the rose form- thanks again.

Noa

Noa- what a pic of the areas you are interested in updating - it might helps us in giving suggestions?

noa - you might look into miniature roses. These are suitable for containers. Overwintering them is another matter though!

Have you considered tuberous begonias like 'non-stop'? They come in different colors. You can combine with coleus, other trailing plants for delightful shade container.

Sue

See this link for ideas for shade containers...

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/579389/

Beautiful Rex begonias, coleus.

Sue

I googled and found these sites...
http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/g00009.asp
http://www.gardenguides.com/articles/eightrules.htm
http://www.mastergardenproducts.com/gardenerscorner/gardening_in_the_shade.htm

Hope these help!

Thanks, guys!
I will try to take a picture and post it tomorrow. The half-barrel is not where it will end up yet, but i can take a picture of it separately so you can see that too.
Ofc ourse, now with the snow it would be hard to see the area, exactly... maybe I should wait a few days until it melts!
I do have some nice begonias that are growing well inside my house, so I may try a couple of those outside and see how they do... I'm also thinking some ferns, but they may get too big for a barrel, especially if there are other plants sharing it... What do you think?
Noa

Noa - there are a lot of really great fuchsias that you could put into a shade container. Some that I've seen in the past few years have variegated/or deeply veined foliage that's as much of a draw as the flowers. They did great in my shade containers last year.

I also just learned that Abutilons can take some lower light. There are several of these that have great flowers all summer, and have maple-like foliage.

Fuchsia and Abutilon could both look great with the begonias you already have, too.

Elephant ears also do well in the shade to part sun, too. In that part-shade yard, if you had a spot you could keep well-watered, and where you enriched the soil to make it good and composted, elephant ears would look great in the ground as an anchor to a planting of other shade stuff. Ort even just one plant as a special focal feature.

Whatever you use, I'm sure you'll have fun figuring it out!

I'm out here on LI, too, and it looks like the weather might give us a break so we can get out there and play!

Take care,
Jamie

The weather was so nice today! We did a little gardening, most notably pruning our ugly shrub near the stairs into a bonsai-looking thing. I'll inlcude some pictures.

Any ideas for a 2' tall, shade-liking, preferably flowering plant? That part of the yard gets a little direct light in the early morning. That's where I had some Impatiens last year, which bloomed but did not really grow... I'll probably put some impatiens there again, so I'll have 3 layers: the bonsai looking shrub, the new mystery plant which I need to find, and impatiens in the front.
Any thoughts?

I'm also looking to plant a rose in one of the barrels, which may or may not remain where I put them this morning :-)

Thanks for all the links, I've been browsing them for ideas all day!
Noa

Here's a couple more pictures

one more picture

Bigcityal had shared this once and I thought it was great! http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC1153.htm