Beginner Gardening: help under oak trees, 1 by DevilDogs

DevilDogs wrote:
Hi Aiken, I would love to do a shade garden here...but the oaks take all the water so would need stuff that basically wouldn't care about being ignored water wise. Dax, those pictures are gorgeous! I had a huge hosta come up unexpectedly in my dog yard this spring and am very pleasantly surprised that my little boys lifting their legs all over it hasn't killed it. No clue what kind it is, but it's nice looking. I'm not familiar with caladium at all and would have to look it up. Your bed looks very managable but that's just planted, right? Those will get as huge as my dog yard hosta, right? (ignore the rest of the picture...it's the dog yard and a mass of weeds and a project for another year...I'm only taking on what I can manage this year and planning what I can tackle in the next 12 to 18 months for now). When they are full grown, do they completely cover everything or do you still see spacing between them? My only hesitation on them is with the amount of critters around here, I rather not give them some place to hide that close to the house/garage. It's also a very weird area in that I have grass growing perfectly right outside the trees, just not within the circle of the trees...which of course isn't a circle to be exact. I'll see if I can get another shot to describe what I'm babbling about. We talked about putting an arbor or birdbath or garden seat with plants around it in this area...but again, I'm back to the oaks hogging the water.
I gotta feed the horses...will be back later and really appreciating this...this is exactly what I need!