Is the site open to the sky? If so it widens your choice considerably.

I have the same situation. We moved into our house 3 years ago and there were barberries planted on the north side. They are doing very well. Also, although not shrubs, there are roughly a billion tiger lilies that do very well along the north side (they bloom about 10 days later than ones that get lots of sun).

On the north side of my house I have black currant bushes. They grow just fine in the lack of sun, and even fruit quite nicely. Their foliage has a strong musky smell (not to everyone's taste). Barberry (especially the golden-leafed varieties) can take a lot of shade, and don't mind the cold up here. And of course, there are always rhododendrons and azaleas, which I don't have a lot of experience with.

Laurelin

Kalmia latifolia, mountain laurel. Evergreen, shade loving.

Or yew, of course. Grows very slowly.

Thanks everyone for the ideas. I have lots of work to do on that side of the house and this time of year I find is a good time to do some of the planning.
I happen to pick up some of last year issues of Fine Gardening at a local thrift store and they've been lots of help too.

I'd like to suggest that you plant some rhododendrons in the area you describe, as long as they won't be subject to snow/ice falling off your roof. They do beautifully in north-facing areas, and can get quite large. Also, the foliage is evergreen, and you get the added bonus of beautiful purple flowers in the spring.

is the north-side a particularly difficult side? the north-side (front of our house) is in a lot of shade from huge trees in the front. we've had some difficulty with the shade garden type plants that we've placed here. i attributed it to the bad winter last year. but could it have been compounded by the fact that it faces north? we've just been doing trial-error planting -- picking shade plants that we like at the nursery, and hoping that they make it. lots of ferns, hostas, helleborus, dicentra. we were thinking of planting a bushy-shrub-type plant, and i was thinking of rhododendron.

oh, wait -- i got disonriented... our front faces _south_. the sun rises in the east, right?.. ha ha. that's how i have to figure out the directions... does the south pose similar problems as north-facing?

The southern exposure is prime plant real estate, robbie. If you're thinking of roses, put them there.

Not all ferns and hostas, etc. are terribly winter hardy. Rhododendron, or the species mountain laurel, do just fine in shade, since they grow naturally in forests, with tree canopy coverage. Azaleas are closely related, but not all azaleas are veyr hardy.

Before getting into rhododendrons, azaleas, etc. **Get a Soil Test Done**. The local cooperative extension office can do a simple pH test for $3 (I think - old info) or sometimes garden centers offer them for free in the spring. I live in a lime pocket, and I don't know how many acid loving shrubs my neighbors have killed over the years. Talking with people from Soil & Water, I get the idea that areas of high pH are quite common in this general area. If you read William Cullina's books carefully, there are a surprising number of northeastern wildflowers that prefer a neutral to alkaline soil. It's here, and you have to take it into account.

My North side is actually the side of my house (which faces East). On the North side, we've got some astilbe, hosta, a rhododendron, and bleeding hearts. The fence on the end gets sun through the backyard, and I've got a coral honeysuckle climbing it, which provided color from mid-summer through frost.

We had trouble with hellebores, having had them die under the lilac bush near the house and on the side. I now have two, one of which was budded until several (six or more) inches of snow landed on them, and they are in the front (East), but in the shade of the porch. Ferns we keep in the damp and shady corner of the yard, which is also the domain of the primrose, jack-in-the-pulpit, some more hosta, japanese primrose, trillium, lamium, pulmonaria, foamflower, and forget-me-nots.
My trouble spot for years was the dry shady side of the yard, namely the area under the neighbor's four-story-tall weeping willow tree. Unfortunately, it's in a small suburban backyard, not at the bottom of some rolling hill next to a river bank. The area right under the tree can support a wide variety because it gets some early sun. I've even managed to persuade Zephrine Drouhin to bloom there, and never develop blackspot. It's the area between the two corners that's been a bear. Dry and mostly shade. Ugh. The hosta are doing OK there, and the holly bushes, while not great, are alive. And the gigantic comfrey that's there hasn't died, but I'd like it to. (Any hints? I want that monster GONE.)

My favorite shrubs are the small-leafed rhododendrons. Everyone who sees mine thinks they're azaleas, but they're much hardier than azaleas. Depending on the variety, the height can vary but most grow to the 3-4 foot range. I have large leafed rhododendrons in the front of my raised ranch house & they get too tall...I have to cut them back almost every year. I'm thinking about replacing them with some small-leafed rhodies.

Trudi