Gardening 911!!!

Problem- I have a shade garden in the middle of some trees. Its really hard to work the soil since there are so many tree roots plus it stays SO DRY! We planted caladiums and elephant ears there last year, but most of them never came up and if they did they were PUNY! I thought it was because they didn't get enough water (we were in a drought Spring - Fall) But now we are getting plenty of rain and they aren't even coming up. So my dilemma is... do I try planting again or do I try to do raised beds? I have astilbe, hosta, impatiens, and coleus that I want to plant there and they should be ready to plant in a couple of weeks. I have also considered doing the raised beds and surrounding them with rocks to kinda naturalize the beds so they don't stand out as much.

PS. These are pictures from last year before we put in the bench and everything.

Do you see the neighbors burn can in the bottom picture? LOL