here's a pic to see what I'm working with.

I used Dusty Miller under a tree, works pretty good. I tried to buy more the other day but they are out of it everywhere after the unusually cold winter zapped lots of them. My 2 plants made it, it usually winters over in zone 7. I like the yellow blooms but some people trim them so its just silver foliage.

The low growing artemisia's work well too. I'm currently on a obsessive silver foliage kick so I've been checking for the same thing.

S. 'silver carpet' blooms rarely and so you don't have all those ugly flowers. Also Helen von stein has big leaves and rarely blooms (never for me). Other than stachys, you could use Japanese painted fern, one of the silver leaves Brunneras, Pulmonaria, Russian sage, Helichrysum petiolare (all though an annual) forgot to mention blue fescue...

This post was edited by shadeyplace on Sat, Jun 7, 14 at 8:16

I don' t know how much shade, Salvia argentea can tolerate..
I much prefer the 'Silver Lace' dusty miller, for exactly just what the name implies about its' foliage, but there are fairly newer other cultivars like 'Cirrhus' (sp?) with broader leaves.
Then there are Verbascum, like the bombycifera, that is also a biennial, with silver fuzzy rosette of leaves. Unless, possibly the flower stalk is removed before too long? Not quite sure yet, as it is my first year with it...
For major display, artichoke are rather splendid, for extreme architectural appearance & silver foliage. But, with another winter, like the past one, it would be annual anyways!