Shaded areas

Hi everyone
A large area of our garden is shaded by next door's very large oaks, plus a huge lime tree of our own. Unfortunately it's the best bit, being easy to work. The rest of the garden seems to grow stones, rocks, and boulders which we have to clear to plant any thing!
The question is, what can we plant in the shaded areas that won't mind little direct sun and rain? We though of various grasses, would they work? We tried bamboo as it's supposed to grow anywhere and spread everywhere. But it died. Nettles and ferns do okay and they're good for the wild life we know, but there's plenty of inaccessible areas for wild life already.
Any good ideas?

We grow rhododendrons quite succesfully under the shade of some big trees. They do need the occasional watering in July & August,
but they do pretty well there. We do have an acid soil though.
The other thing you might want to look at, are the Vibernums. We have Vibernum snowball, and that will cope with almost anything. Plenty of flowers in Spring, but not evergreen.

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=100

Shade planting information from the RHS site - there are loads of plants available for such places, I sometimes wish I had more shade in my garden. 

Hostas work for us :-) they do really well in the shade

Heucheras, some euronymus and hellebores spring to mind. (apologies for the spelling). Also try the usual bomb-proof things like Alchemilla and Crocosmia. And Vincas. And I want to say Camellias, but you'll need to check that.
Don't forget as well that some veggies, esp leafy greens, will do fine in shade so long as you water them -less inclined to bolt..

A large thank you to each and everyone who replied, and apologies for not doing so sooner.
We were expecting notification of replies but didn't get indication that we'd had replies!!

All ideas appreciated. Now all we need is a) time and b) money, and we'll be rivalling Monty Don....not