Last year I bought plants for my daughter to put in a shade garden. Impatiens, hosta, coleus, coral bells, they all died long before the summer was over. I'm not sure what happened.

This afternoon we were looking over the same spot and trying to decide what to do with it. The tree that shades this spot is a big old cedar and I noticed the only thing really growing there is some of that stinky wild mint, and a few prickly lettuce plants.

Is there anything that will grow with a cedar? Or are we just out of luck with plants and need to put down some decorative mulch?

How about ground covers-Bishops weed-use the less aggressive such as variegated pachysandra,vinca, or dead nettle.
Ginger-easy to grow native wild ginger,Asarum canadense. Wild ginger dies back in the winter
brunnera macrophlla-this 15-18 incn tall plant has blue forget- me- not flowers in the spring.
Lily- of- the- valley-comes in white or pink flowers.
I hope this gives some ideas,don't know why your hosta's didn't grow ,mine is doing well.

I gave up trying to grow anything in the dirt under my cedar (10 years old maybe more).I have tried several ground covers, astible,impatients,ferns ,solomon seal,pansies etc... so far the only luck I have had is with Hostas interspersed with impatients in decorative old assorted pots for a dash of color

My mom had close to 100 daffodils under a big cedar. Irises and cyclamen do well too. And the bulbs are short lived but lovely in spring, so something else you can do is make a rock garden under it, forming the rocks in irregular "raised bed" shapes, fill those with soil from elsewhere, and you will have more freedom to plant annuals. But if your cedar is deciduous or drops a lot of needles, you need to get those out of the raised beds.

Yesterday when we were poking around there, the first thing I said was that we needed to get some daffodils in there this fall. The spot gets full morning sun and daffodils blooming right now would be gorgeous. And I have plenty of iris I can fill in with.

I really like the idea of putting impatiens and things in big pots. I'll have to see if we can find some really cheap containers. Her house is right on main street and I'm always a little worried about things disappearing in the night.

Is there some way that you can make 'pockets' around the base of the tree for plants?
Just an idea, since you were talking about sinking pots of flowers.
Dig holes about 12", then add compost, soil+plants and mulch well with fine shredded wood chips.
Probably the area is very dry shade with a ton of tree roots.
Every spring, the tree will have extended little roots into the nice soil 'pockets'. I've been doing this by some hemlocks+yews for years. The plants I put in are impatiens...but the shade is a 'moist' shade.

We planted "White Nancy" under our large cedar tree early last year and it is doing great. Is in full bloom now with the yellow blooms. Also had set some vinca (not the perriwinkles but the small-leafed evergreen with small blue blooms) and it looks okay but the White Nancy is spreading and has made a lovely cover where it was just bare dirt before. If you use the White Nancy, you have to be prepared to keep it at bay, however, 'cause it is very invasive. I also plan to put out some ferns next week and set them close to the trunk of the tree. Deer do not usually eat ferns. (I have seen White Nancy at Lowe's.)