Ground cover for shady area

I DONT KNOW ABOUT GROUND COVER AS SUCH, BUT FERNS LIKE SHADY, DAMP CONDITIONS & THERE ARE SOME LOVELY ONES OUT THERE WHICH COULD CERTAINLY ADD INTEREST TO THAT DIFFICULT AREA.

Pachysandra is a good plant for groundcover for shady soggy areas. You could look at marginal pond plants like creeping jenny (lysmachia) that has evergreen foliage and yellow buttercup flowers.

If you borrow Beth Chatto's book - 'The Shady Garden' - she gives loads of ideas for this kind of situation.Your local Library should have a copy, or I got mine from Amazon very cheaply. Lilies of the Valley might be OK according to her, depending on the type of soil and getting them established. Ivies grow in shade, but I think they prefer drier ground. Do you want any more ideas? How much space have you got to cover?

Hi Lainedru do not fret about having a shady boggy section in your garden some people go out of their way just to get the same effect as you have now!

Hostas are a favourite plant of mine although their flowers are not much to look its the leaves that brings your little shady garden into all it's glory, they come in an amazing amount of different leaf shades, sizes etc. and they do like it quite damp too.

The only down side of them is that slugs just love to eat the plants all up but if you place a little drinking tray near them the slugs are more taken with the beer than the plants! Hel.xxx.

Some hostas have thicker/tougher leaves that are not so desirable to snails - a specialist hosta nursery should be able to advise you which ones. 'Halcyon', with large glaucous blue foliage, is certainly one to try

I remember some years back buying a Hosta named 'Silvery Slugproof ', unfortunately it didn't live up to it's name.

http://www.burncoose.co.uk/site/category.cfm?cat_id=22

Here are a few groung cover suggestions, have a look through and do a bit of research on the internet to see if any match your spec.
Happy hunting!!