zone 8b, seeking lists for part shade native alternatives to common edibles and ornamentals

Planting a Refuge for Wildlife by the Wildlife Foundation of Florida is a great start, but permie.com member EXPERIENCES might get me further. My web page http://www.makehere.us will be for neighborhood bartering of permaculture plants, but so far it is a running detailed inventory of all my property's identified plants. I need to create a big wish list.

Please respond and on my completed site I will link directly to this thread. I will also be linking and posting to sites like eattheweeds.com

Many wood chips, pine needles, and coffee bar used grounds later, my newish urban permaculture half acre currently features edibles like opuntia, malanga (Xanthosoma sagittifolium), mayhaw, pawpaw, banana, high bush blueberry, elderberry, saw palmetto, bamboo shoots, creeping cucumber. I am trying to replace all the worst wildlife unfriendly plants with habitat ones, at a snail's pace to give wildlife time to adjust. I have 2 city sanctioned rain gardens, a roof garden for succulents, and some problematic sloped deep shade.

But Hurricane Hermine just gifted me so much future mulch!

Thanks for your attention.

Pigeon berry is a ground cover that is a good food for wildlife. http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=RIHU2

If you're far enough south for outdoor citrus, I've seen an orange tree loaded with fruit growing under a full canopy of other mature trees in Austin. We're also 8b, so maybe this is relevant to your situation.  I don't know how many other species will eat them, but mockingbirds have definitely learned they're edible. Some of the newer citrus varieties in Texas reliably survive temps down to 14 F.

Actually, I just realized I forgot to mention, from the same yard in Austin, very deeply shaded corner was a pineapple guava covered in fruit. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.

Now I'm feeling a little dumb. I looked in your post for the word native checked your list of existing plants to see if it was comprised only of natives. Somehow I missed the word native in the thread title. Sorry. I'm gonna
say instead that you probably would find the Lady Bird Johnson database (which the pigeon berry link takes you to) very helpful. They have a somewhat searchable database of native plants. You can at least limit it by state and growing conditions. Just scanning through the results for Florida, less than two hours of sunlight, I see a lot of plants that I recognize as wildlife food, and a few that are good for humans also.

Casie Becker wrote:Actually, I just realized I forgot to mention, from the same yard in Austin, very deeply shaded corner was a pineapple guava covered in fruit. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.

Now I'm feeling a little dumb. I looked in your post for the word native checked your list of existing plants to see if it was comprised only of natives. Somehow I missed the word native in the thread title. Sorry. I'm gonna
say instead that you probably would find the Lady Bird Johnson database (which the pigeon berry link takes you to) very helpful. They have a somewhat searchable database of native plants. You can at least limit it by state and growing conditions. Just scanning through the results for Florida, less than two hours of sunlight, I see a lot of plants that I recognize as wildlife food, and a few that are good for humans also.

Casie, everything you wrote applies to me...I stress native, but maybe this thread will lead me to many edible non native plants that work with native pollinators, etc. Like, I wonder about dragon fruit. Pineapple  guava? OK!

I list my "junk plants" in my inventory without initial condemnation, but then I link to sites about eradication and alternatives. I don't want to get in people's faces too quickly about what I think of strictly ornamental exotics! Many of my links go to the LBJ site, so you validated them.