Northeast Gardening: Half-barrell partial shade garden?, 1 by noadotoo

noadotoo wrote:
The weather was so nice today! We did a little gardening, most notably pruning our ugly shrub near the stairs into a bonsai-looking thing. I'll inlcude some pictures.

Any ideas for a 2' tall, shade-liking, preferably flowering plant? That part of the yard gets a little direct light in the early morning. That's where I had some Impatiens last year, which bloomed but did not really grow... I'll probably put some impatiens there again, so I'll have 3 layers: the bonsai looking shrub, the new mystery plant which I need to find, and impatiens in the front.
Any thoughts?

I'm also looking to plant a rose in one of the barrels, which may or may not remain where I put them this morning :-)

Thanks for all the links, I've been browsing them for ideas all day!
Noa