Shade Gardening: Who is beginning to take serious looks at the catalogs now?, 1 by PrairieGirlZ5

PrairieGirlZ5 wrote:
Hi Lauren!
I have finally taken a good look at the side of my house, it is south-facing, but gets lots of shade from a 30' blue spruce. I had noticed that the purple coneflowers and grasses I planted there last summer didn't look so hot, better to consider this area part shade.
I am a catalog junkie from way back, but have never mail-ordered plants. I am lusting for White Flower Farm's "Shady Ladies Perennial Collection" :
http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/preplanned-gardens.html. It includes one each of a Japanese painted fern Athyrium nipponicum 'Pictum', Blue Star Amsonia tabernaemontana, and Yellow Foxglove Digitalis grandiflora, the amsonia is their own selection, it is supposed to be a deeper blue than the species, and if the plants look anything like the pictures, I'd be mighty happy!
I was thinking of centering a Yellow Waxbell (Kirengeshoma palmata) with an oak-leafed hydrangea and 'Bright Edge' yucca on either side. The yuccas are full sun plants but I know they'd survive okay, and would provide structure in winter. I could even tuck in some purple-leaf heucheras to pick up the burgundy stems of the ferns. Maybe even do an alternating thing with those two plants as edging? The amsonia turns bright yellow in winter. Do you know about Waxbells winter looks/habit are? I'm unfamiliar with it, thought it would be a challenge, but since it looked similar to the oak leaf, "like a sister, only different" if anyone remembers that old SNL joke LOL. The blooms are different, at any rate. The area is well drained, amended with wood chips, 3' or 4' deep X 12'-13' long. Brunnera macrophylla could work there too, with the blue flowers of the amsonia.