Plants for Shade

here is a link and article from another great site.

http://flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77921

not a forest garden, but some good info none the less

i have found here that some plants actually do better with afternoon shade..for example..i have black raspberries growing in two areas of the property..one is right next to the garage under 4' wide eaves, so they don't get a lot of water and they are shaded for most of the day..and then there are some in the garden proper also with something at their west..but it is lattice, they get sun for most of the day with a slight bit of shade in the late afternoon..

the ones that get the most shade and less rain have abundant very large sweet juicy berries from June until Frost, the ones in the garden proper have smaller seedier berries that are less juicy and much much fewer of them.

so I would say experiment with what you plant if you have the opportunity plant a few seeds or plants of every thing in a shady area when possible and see how well it does..if it's ancestry was NOT a meadow plant..it likely will do well in some shade...never hurts to try

Here I have a LOT of shade and am doing baby food forests that will be very shady when they grow up..so I do a lot of shade experimenting and so far most plants do just fine with some shade.

In a hot climate at a low latitude (like my latitude 30 degrees N) many if not most plants seem to prefer dappled or part day shade, except during the winter. So here in the Southwest, I think some deciduous trees would be a good thing to have in the garden. We have a lot of Live Oaks which have leaves most of the year except in late winter/early spring, and they cast a bit too much shade sometimes if in a dense stand. Patchy sun and shade, or dappled, seems to be the easiest for plants here.