This could be really COOL!! Okay, I don't have a lot of it but I'll start with Top Ten Shade perennials:

Dicentra spectabilis/bleeding heart
Heuchera/coral bells
Tricyrtis hirta/toad lily
Aquilegia/columbine
Astilbe/false spirea
Carex morrowii/Japanese sedge grass
Cimicifuga racemosa/black snakeroot
Hellebore/Lenten rose
Hosta/plantain lily
Alchemilla mollis/lady's mantle

I confess many of those listed above are also growing in part sun as well as full shade and I've had equal success growing them in both conditions thanks, I gather, to healthy soil & lots of fat earthworms.

Top Ten Shade Perennials

Epimedium
Hellebore
Dicentra spectabilis
Tiarella cordifolia
Japanese Painted Fern
‘Ghost’ Fern
Solomon’s Seal
Phlox divaricata
Cimicifuga
Hosta

Like Gardenweed, some of these are growing in part shade/part sun. Epimedium has grown well anywhere I put it, full shade to part sun.

One of the top ten spreaders surely has to be cannas.

Reading these lists makes me think I NEED more plants. Except I don't have much shade or part shade. Anticipating a full sun list :)

How about top 10 ground covers:

Lamium 'White Nancy', 'Orchid Frost' and 'Pink Pewter'

and?

Tricky, these numbered category things. They regularly list favourites over on the antique rose forum (and I bet they do on other plant species forums) - it is always impossible to make much of a selection. So many variables. I usually just come up with a list of what I like today......and will be utterly different any other time. But anyway, it is a handy focus so here's my stab at my 'top' sun-lovers, in no particular order (that really is beyond me).
Salvia greggii (and related jamensis and microphylla)
I have a few of these shrubby sages (mainly because nothing is easier to propagate).....which bloom from May to November, with not an iota of fuss.
Pulsatilla/Pasque flowers - these delightful little plants are the bright harbingers of spring in my scree gardens - their ferny foliage gives way to extraordinary vivid blooms - and having always struggled with the poppy anemone, pulsatilla is a cheerful alternative - a jewel of a flower with a deliciously tactile fluffy seedhead. It will gently seed about - welcome everywhere.
Indigofera heterantha - this is borderline hardy for me - it gets cut down to the ground every winter, even here in Z8.....but it springs anew with fresh pinnate foliage and that leguminous form which I find enchanting.
Callirhoe involucrata - I love these poppy mallows....in fact malvaceae in general are one of the flower styles I adore most profoundly.
Angelica sylvestris Vicar's Mead
Umbellifers/apiaceae have been amongst my favourites for a few years now but this dark angelica has an elegance I find lacking in the admittedly equally striking A.gigas. Much richer than anthriscus 'Ravenswing' - a gothic, brooding umbel, glorious with filipendula and willowherbs.
Stipa gigantea
This has become a garden design cliche....but what can I say - it is a gorgeous grass with the setting sun illuminating it's flowers, it is almost incandescent
Papaver rupifragum
Yep, poppies - another weakness of mine - I could have chosen a dozen. A toss-up between P.canescens and P.rupifragum - only the latter has the most sumptuous leaves, like supercharged lamb's ears.
Campanula lactiflora 'Pritchard's Variety
Mine is a few years old....and has increased in stature into an enormous cloud of blue - a charming companion to my unruly roses and the epitome of cottage garden style.
Geranium riversleanum 'Russell Prichard'
'When in doubt, plant a geranium' - Marjorie Fish's famous dictum....and quite right too. Rozanne, naturally, having been voted RHS 'plant of the century' cannot be underestimated.....but for sun, not really. But oh, months and months of mannerly rambling from RP....or Mavis Simpson, another goodie. But whatever, there is a geranium for every garden.
Linum arboreum - yet another treasured family - the flaxes. To wave the flag for the smaller garden, the little tree flax (treelike in a bionsai stylee, for sure) is an evergreen beauty - the clearest yellow flowers are horticultural sunshine.....although I am also ringing the bell for a new to me linum, L.rigida, aka Texas flax. Am hoping for a new addition to drool over.

Damn.....I haven't even mentioned lathyrus or my sweetest, welcome anywhere, daisy weed, erigeron karvinskianus.............

PM2 - I omitted Japanese painted fern from my Top Ten list because after 7 years in my full shade bed I've had mixed results with it. Some years it's great; others it's pretty insignificant compared to other shade perennials. Has yours performed to your expectations every year since you've grown it? If the answer is yes, what are you doing that I should be doing?

I thought about each of the plants I listed above and selected the best of what I've got growing. At least we listed many of the same ones! ;-)

For shade:
Trillium grandiflora
Rodgersia aesculiflora
Solomon's seal - the big all-green ones, not the wimpy variegated ones!
White corydalis
'Ghost' ferns
Big blue hostas like 'Elegans' and 'Bressingham Blue'
Astilboides for damp areas
Bugbanes - both the green 'White pearl' and the darling-leafed ones
'Jack Frost' brunnera
'Green Spice' heuchera

Hi Gardenweed, well, not every year, but neither has any other plant given top performance every year. I've had a couple of years where drought has affected my garden significantly and in those years, the ferns suffered and the year after they were not as robust as they were previously.

We did have four the same. I have Heuchera but I'm never that thrilled with how mine performs. I love Astilbe and have them but most of them petered out because again, my garden is pretty dry. I do grow Aquilegia and I enjoy it but I guess I was thinking of it as a part sun plant. Nice list!

Campanula, I have Salvia Greggii ‘Maraschino’ and I enjoy that. I keep forgetting to try some more. Pulsatilla has been on my list for awhile, too. I have Callirhoe and it is a very cheery plant.

Ryse Ryse, for Groundcovers, I also like Lamium ‘Purple Dragon’. I’ve tired of my Veronicas and even thyme, which has allowed a weed to grow into it and I’m tired of pulling it out. My favorite ground cover at the moment is Arctostaphylos uva ursi. Does anyone have ten different groundcovers to make a list? [g]

I forgot one for the Shade list, that Woody's list reminded me of….Polygonatum humile, a miniature Solomon's Seal.

This post was edited by prairiemoon2 on Fri, Apr 11, 14 at 20:17

For sun:
- single peonies - so charming and no staking necessary!
- Persicaria polymorpha
- 'Midnight Rose' heuchera
- hardy hibiscus, especially deep red ones like 'Fireball' (with dark, cut-leaf foliage) and 'Lord Baltimore' (with green maple-like foliage) or Disco Belles
- pulsatilla
- culinary sage - edible; pretty flowers; attractive leaf color that is a perfect foil for warm colors; becomes interesting little woody trees as the plants age
- Siberian irises in blue
-veronicastrum
'Silver Mound' artemesia - must be kept clipped to 4" or so
- spring bulbs, especially 'Ivory Floradale', 'Queen of the Night' and 'Angelique'

My favorite full sun plants are trees, shrubs and vines (clematis mostly). If I was doing my full sun front beds over from scratch, I'd use mainly shrubs, trees and vines, underplanted with spring bulbs and a few low perennials that could handle sun or shade (e.g. heucheras).
-

Campanula, do you ever think of getting into garden catalogue writing? At amy rate, thanks for the phrase "a gothic, brooding umbel" among so many others.