Part-shade woodland edge

A four-season native shrub of the southeastern United States, where NC State Extension notes it grows wild in moist woods and along stream banks. It is an upright, multi-stemmed deciduous shrub, slow-growing to roughly 4 to 8 feet tall and 4 to 10 feet wide, named for its large, oak-shaped, lobed dark-green leaves. Showy pyramidal 4-12 inch panicles of creamy-white flowers open from late spring into summer and fade to pink and then tan, while the bold foliage turns wine, orange, and mahogany in fall over peeling cinnamon bark. Easy and low-maintenance in organically rich, well-drained soil, it is grown as a specimen, in masses, or as an informal hedge.

A native spring-blooming herbaceous perennial of eastern North American woodlands, forming a low spreading carpet of fragrant pale-blue to lavender flowers above evergreen-ish foliage. Naturalizes by ground-running stems that root at the nodes - among the best native groundcovers for dappled-shade beds, woodland edges, and as a living mulch above spring bulbs.

A delicate native perennial with red and yellow nodding spring flowers that draw hummingbirds and early pollinators.

A native eastern North American semi-evergreen perennial with heart-shaped foliage and frothy white-to-pink spring flower spikes - among the most reliable native shade groundcovers for woodland gardens. Spreads by stolons in some forms; clumping in others (cultivars selected for both habits).

A native southeastern US heuchera with large rounded velvety lobed leaves (the namesake 'hairy' is the fine pubescence on the foliage) + airy panicles of small white-to-pink flowers on tall slender stems in late summer. Among the most heat- and humidity-tolerant heucheras - solves the southern-shade heuchera-rot problem that plagues most Heuchera americana × sanguinea garden hybrids. The genetic parent of many heat-tolerant Heuchera cultivars.

A native evergreen fern of eastern North America that holds leathery dark green fronds through winter and provides ground-level songbird cover - ideal for shaded woodland slopes and erosion-prone banks.