Beginner Gardening: help under oak trees, 1 by DevilDogs

DevilDogs wrote:
I have a large number of oak trees on the one side of our house where the grass won't grow because the trees suck up all the water. We live on a corner and this faces one of the roads and of course looks terrible. The previous owner told us he tried planting grass multiple times and it constantly died. We just moved here in Oct and I really don't want to go thru planting over and over again just to watch things die. We have 10 acres and plenty of grass so I don't really need grass here, just something that will grow but not take over too much and spread into the areas that are grass. I'm in SC with red clay. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Kristen