Shade garden = planted!

We have planters all around our driveway. This would be lovely for my wannabe green thumbery, except for the car port. And the neighbor's car port. Yeah, about 75% of those planters get MAYBE half an hour of direct sun. You know, if I'm being generous. Fortunately I have just discovered that many of my favorite flowers are part shade -- hydrangia, bleeding heart, azalia -- and many shade plants have interestingly colored foliage. THERE ARE SHADE PLANTS! This baffles Byron, but some of the things I've planted will die if they get direct sun. So whoever decided that some of the planters were useless and filled them with wood chips can bite me. Whoever filled the remaining planters with ivy and gravel, on the other hand, has a date with my shovel. I mean, seriously, WHO'S IDEA WAS THAT?!