After working outside on our property all last weekend I'm really looking
forward to getting down to some gardening this year ;-)

A large part of our 2.5 acre lot is wooded with very tall pine trees (no
lower branches, branches and needles up towards the top) and some smaller
hardwood trees (1" - 6" diameter). After our neighbor had a fire in the
woods we've decided to clear out some of the smaller trees, pine needles and
vines and try to get some mixture of ground cover and flowering plants going
to provide us a buffer around the house in case of another fire.

Can anyone recommend plants that grow well in the shade, that will have some
variety in color, size, etc?

You can get a pretty good idea of what the area I'm talking about looks like
in the second photo down he

http://woozy.com/fire/

We don't plan on planting the whole thing, but a good 20 - 30' out from the
house is what the fire department recommends. We have about 10' of lawn and
then we need to go 10 - 20 into the woods.

Thanks,

Robert