I have a low light area at my cottage and it's a challenge to get anything to grow there. Best luck is with variegated elderberry, thimbleberry, and Cornus Mas dogwoods. Production is super ,low, but they are alive. They get about 5 hours of dappled light.
I have some raspberries here in the city that get 5 hours of light and production is decreased. I would say a minimum of 5 hours of direct sunlight for raspberries. Some might do better with fewer hours, never tried it.I suspect no berry production if lower.

I have two honeyberry plants growing in a limited sunlight area and although this next year will be year 3, they are doing well but have not yet fruited.

Thanks for sharing your shady experience Drew. Not necessarily the answer, I wanted, but I knew it might be tough.

The biggest thing I notice is that because of the way both areas sit related to the oaks, the amount of sunlight changes quite a bit from Spring to Summer to Fall.

I'm thinking I may go ahead and try the raspberries in the area that gets some reasonable sun in the summer and just hope they aren't too light starved early spring or late fall that they don't produce. Maybe I'll try Prelude to test the early season and Anne to see how things fair late summer/fall. Are black raspberries a better choice for less light?

Anyone with thoughts on growing honeyberries in zone 7? Shade okay or is it just too warm here? I guess one other concern is if they bloom too early will I have any pollinators out for them.

Thanks again.

Thanks Charlie. You must have been posting just as I sent my last response!

Have your Honeyberries flowered but just not set fruit? Also, do you know the types your growing? At least it is good to know they are growing and don't sound like they're struggling too badly.

I'm trying honeyberries in the shade too, but nothing really to report yet. they are too young. Well keep us updated on your results. Cornus Mas is growing really well, but these are trees. i had seedlings. i read to expect fruit around the 6th leaf. They are 3rd leaf. The variegated elderberry is doing well too. I would say these two will work. I don't have any recent photos. I need to take some. I have a photo from last year of the dogwoods.
I don't know the answer to any of your other questions.
I'm also trying currants, but gave up on them. They need at least 1/2 a day.I grow them, not in shade though.
My problems is just not shade, it's extremely wet to extremely dry, cold, windy, tree roots all over. It's a tough environment.

Raspberries I have in shade, Fall Gold, Anne, and Himbo Top are doing OK, not great, but producing. Anne is a low production plant, but it is worth growing. The berries are awesome. Fall gold too, nice plant.
Wineberries would probably do well too. I'm trying those and thimbleberries. Both woodland Rubus plants. Both are too young to give any report on.

They had a couple of blooms this year that fell off. I don't recall the varieties, but I purchased them because they were recommended as compatible polinators. I believe that they are Cinderella Honeyberry and Borealis Honeyberry.

I'm in zone 7 California, and planted 4 honeyberries in partial shade about 5 years ago. They have done poorly, just hanging in there in good soil. The puppy killed one with her digging, so I'm going to finish the job for her and remove the rest. I've had it with nurseries promoting offbeat plants that are really poor bets.

Honeyberries are awesome plants, I can't blame the nursery if you grow them in the wrong location and the wrong conditions. They are super easy to grow if you have the right conditions. If you bought them from a local nursery, yeah they should not be selling them. If you bought them from a big box store, hey your bad, as they always sell the wrong plants.
I would not call them off beat, they are very main stream around here. Much easier to grow than blueberries, so if you consider them off beat blueberries are off the radar.

I've added 9 varieties of honeyberry over the last two years in borderline zone 7. Some are still in pots, which I should remedy, as I don't water them as much as I should which limits their growth a lot. Among the in-ground ones, they still don't grow that quickly, but I've gotten fruit from 3-4 of them. Each only produced a few fruit, and I don't remember which came from which- I'll pay better attention when there are bigger crops. But I do recall that there was a pretty big difference, both in size and flavor.

I have them in one of my lower sun areas, which still isn't too bad, now that I've taken out all the shade trees in my yard (and most of my neighbors' which are close). During the summer, the get maybe ~8 hours of sun and 3-4 at this time of year, around midday. They are in a moister area of the yard (bottom of a hill), in a large raised bed.

Thanks for your response Chickencoop. I wonder if you aren't getting enough chill hours in your zone, but that is just a guess since I don't really know too much about those California zones. Either way, I think since they are from areas much cooler than ours trying them in warmer areas will definitely be a risk.

Bob, thanks for your report as well. From you and the others it sounds like it is worth a try, although I'll have to work on my patience for a few years while I wait for berries. Sometimes I think my patience is better suited to spring peas than fruit!

I have a somewhat similar area in my garden and the bigger problem is the oaks soaking up all the water and nutrients from the soil. They pretty much dominate the area underground and make it hard for anything to thrive.

My honeyberries do fine, two out of six died within the first hot summer, one out of the six has done well but only produces a hand full of berries which are not all that special as far as flavor.

Around here Red Raspberries do best with some shade. Polka and Mandarin have done the best for me - all do well but these two have full raspberry flavor this far south. Wineberries do okay (they do great up in the mountains). They are monster big rambling plants though. The flavor is different but good.

Cornus mas does fine but is slow growing. The fruit don't taste like much fresh off the tree. I have to cook them with sugar to get them to taste like cherries and even then the flavor is mild.

Serviceberries do fine for me - they suffer from Cedar Quince Rust but I get enough berries for me. They can taste like blueberries with a hint of Amaretto.

John, thanks for your thoughts and suggestions. How many years were your Honeyberries in the ground before you got fruit and are they in shade or sun?

I'm adding Polka and Mandarin to my list of possible Raspberries. I see Polka is pretty readily available, but I see Mandarin is not readily available anywhere. Any thoughts where to get them? Did you try Caroline and if so, was the heat just too much?

Cornus mas sounds interesting to me, but I really like fruit I can pick and eat right in the garden (as do my kids, more importantly). Which serviceberry are you growing? I had pretty much written them off based on the Rust issue, but maybe if Rust only gets a bit of your crop...