So...I need a replacement. Something evergreen. Clay soil. Normal to damp area. Some of the area gets some afternoon sun and some gets no sun at all. The area is fairly well contained by the driveway but something devious like the English Ivy could try to slip under the breezeway to the other side. I need something that will fill in but be a bit more behaved and will not climb.

Any suggestions?

The hellebores seem a little tall for what I'm looking for. I have some ferns and Astilbe and Asters in the same area. The area is not large. One side of the walkway is about 11'x5' and the other 11'x3'.

Was also thinking about Pachysandra but I don't know the personality. Not sure if it would be evergreen here or not. Unruly? When I look at the websites of all the places that sell plants, the write-up always make each plant look like the the greatest plant that ever lived. So hard to know for sure.

Thanks again.

We pulled out lots and lots of English Ivy the previous owner had left for years and years, and tried several ground cover gifts from different gardening neighbors. Here's our experience in Northern Virginia, Zone 7, almost full shade, dry shade:

Pachysandra the winner - evergreen, looks good, not as invasive as the bad guys Vinca Minor and 2 kinds of lamium.

Robb's Spurge (might be Almond Spurge) - looks good, evergreen, stays lower if you go to the trouble of cutting off the chartreuse shoots/blooms. Also a winner, spreads but easy to move/pull the little ones that start where you don't want them.

Sweet Woodruff - looks great, not evergreen, nice for variety but doesn't spread or fill in too well in really dry shade. Very nice delicate white flowers in spring.

Lamium - looks good the first year, spreads too quickly, takes over any other groundcover around it. OK if you want low maintenance and don't care that it spreads really quickly. Not evergreen.

Strawberry Begonia - looks great and is nice for variety, although if doesn't spread well like the euphorbia. From reading the Web about it, it would do better if this area wasn't such dry shade. The foliage looks great and I recommend trying this if replacing English Ivy. Not evergreen but comes back in spring. Here's a nice photo and another gardener's experience with it.

http://home.att.net/~larvalbugrex/begonias.html

Vinca minor - aka periwinkle. Thank goodness this and lamium are easier to pull out than English Ivy. It's ok if you want no maintenance and don't care about how invasive it is. Truly it got boring looking, probably because I got interested in all these others we tried and preferred their look to this. The flowers (periwinkle color) look good but in deep shade you don't get many.