I'm in a zone similar to yours, and have planted all of those herbs. Our soil here is fairly heavy clay, though, which holds moisture well, and I believe we get more rain than you do. Additionally, I suspect we have more humidity. In my conditions, all of the plants you list would probably find full sun tolerable as long as they had sufficient moisture. They would need to be carefully watched for the first few weeks until their roots recovered from being moved, and might need protection via artificial shade if they began to wilt. The rosemary, basil, oregano, and chives would actively prefer full sun. Basil is the one of those most susceptible to fungus problems if the soil's moisture is excessive, but it is not equipped to deal with insufficient moisture, either. Oregano and chives are usually happy with average garden conditions, and rosemary would prefer sharp drainage, best achieved in a pot (with added sand, if your soil is clay and you are not using potting soil...I hate the artificial potting soil, but don't get me started). Oregano will tolerate some shade, but spreads better the more sun it gets; the same is true for chives. They should both come back for you next year. I think Basil is an out-an-out annual; in any case, it is not winter hardy in our zone, so it will not return. Most rosemaries are not winter hardy in our zone, the sometime exception being AARP and maybe some new one/s I don't know about yet. Even with full sun, it will not be able to compete with the other herbs, and even chives, unless planted at a distance, might be able to overgrow it. If you want to plant one herb in a pot, that would be the one I would choose for that. If the pot is large enough, you could put a thyme in with it; thymes are so tiny that they are easily overwhelmed in an in-ground planting with larger plants, and they are as fond of sharp drainage as rosemary is. Most mints can tolerate some shade, and some actually prefer quite a bit of it. Most like to have some direct sun at least part of the day, though. In Pennsylvania, lemon balm, which I think is really lemon mint, can easily take over a whole garden bed, meaning one that has been cultivated and is easy to grow in. That won't happen for a few years, but if you want a low-maintenance, long-lasting herb garden where everything has a chance to survive, I wouldn't put lemon balm in there. You could put it in a pot and make certain to cut it back before it goes to seed, or plant it in a well-bounded spot by itself well away from any other cultivation. I don't like it in pots; it spreads mainly by seed setting rather than runners, so it has a vertical habit that looks gangly unless you keep it severely pruned. If you want to make a lot of tea with it, it will perennialize nicely for you, and I would give it its own spot. It probably will spread around your whole yard, but if you use it for tea anyway, that probably will not be too much of a problem. I have not had as much experience yet with apple mint--is yours smooth or fuzzy? You could try that in a pot to start with, or in its own spot, like the lemon mint. I think the smooth kind would look better in a pot than the fuzzy kind. Like any mint, it will have a lot of potential to spread...although I believe I read somewhere that apple mint is a bit more sedate than some mints, preferring to form clumps rather than spread at large (or maybe I am thinking of orange mint). I have planted apple mint several times unsuccessfully, but this time it wintered over for me, the difference seeming to be that I incorporated more organic matter, mostly in the form of leaves, into the planting bed this time. Quite frankly, my preference is to have mint rather than weeds, so I am a bit more permissive with it than most gardeners. If you plan to do gardening with small and delicate plants, mint is not the best thing to have running at will through your property, because it will swamp the more delicate plants. I have a great deal of shade to deal with, and have quite a few shrubs. Mints are fine under shrubs. Good luck with your garden, and I hope you will report back to let us know how it does!

I just discovered this a.m. that we will have several trays of strawberry plants for tomorrows Master Gardener plant sale. Hope to see you there.

bumping down

Thanks for the replies. To answer some of the questions, there is no space between the house and sidewalk, I am talking about the area in front of the sidewalk, going towards the street. I do shovel and blow snow, but not in that area. Sidewalk snow gets shoveled to driveway then blown in other direction. The porch will be getting rebuilt in spring, that nasty porch is going bye bye! To be perfectly honest, I'm not a big fan of the brick and I was thinking the hedge would hide some of it from the street. I figured a really tall hedge to cover the window would be too much, but just thought i'd throw it out there. As far as the small tree suggestion goes, not sure if you can tell in this pic but there is a large maple already in the front yard, it will not get big enough to shade that window, but I worry it could interfere with another a smaller tree planted out farther in the yard as suggested, maybe not. The other concern I have is the driveway is at the end of that sidewalk, I worried about tree roots with planting so close to the driveway, maybe that is not an issue? I do like small trees, but my wife only likes ones with a nice uniform shape to them. I'm guessing I'd need one about 10-15 foot wide and tall, at maturity, and one that grows at a decent rate. The plants in the other section are small boxwoods and barberry, and I actually love boxwoods, hollies, and evergreen shrubs. I have been unable to find a knowledgeable nursery, any suggestions, I'm in the monroe area but happy to drive a little. And you are correct Ken, it has been very cold these last 2 winters, I am about 2 miles from Lake Erie, seems to stay a little warmer here than out in areas like Adrian, but still freezing lol.