Can someone tell me what the rules for planting under trees is? I've heard that you can't underplant deciduous trees, but I see woodland gardens with plenty of stuff, or people have rings of impatiens around trees, or trees in the middle of beds. I have a couple of Crape Myrtles, an oak and a couple of Maples that I'd like to do stuff with, I'm thinking about Hydrangeas and Azaleas. Any suggestions or advice?
TIA!
Underplanting rules?
I love the look of trees underplanted with garden. I don't think it's a problem for the trees, but I've found some trees are such usurpers of moisture, that it makes gardening difficult in those areas. Dry shade is one of the toughest situations to deal with. I've got huge Silver maples that is really bad for that, but a lot of trees aren't so bad. Hydrangeas and Azaleas appreciate the shade of deciduous trees, so given enough moisture, that will look great!
We have tons of lilies and many other plants under our swamp maple.
Just to the left of the above area there is a Crepe Myrtle and there's clematis 'Fireworks', irises, hostas, Japanese and Siberian irises, daffodils, geraniums and many more plants that all do fine.
Exactly - my maple is a Silver Maple... I had put in a bunch of Arum italicum corms and not one of them came up - I can only suspect it was the tree that was the problem, as they're coming up in my beds okay, not 20' away.
Thanks for the pictorial encouragement, Pirl - beautiful beds. Maybe I should just avoid the silver maple.
Any plant is easier to move if it's not surrounded by tree roots.
My back deck is under a huge, old Silver Maple. I love the shade the canopy provides, but it makes it really difficult to grow anything around the deck. This year I've positioned a bunch of my potted houseplants in the beds around the deck, and planted a few shade lovers around and between them. Since I'm watering the potted stuff daily, the stuff in the ground is getting regular moisture too. We've had droughts the last 2 years, so I went around the yard and dug all the ferns, Astilbes, and special Hostas that had been struggling, and crowded them around the deck. Now I can baby all those together. So far, so good- I'll let ya know if I still think that was a good idea come late summer, LOL.
Please do! I would love to hear how it goes.
I'm thinking that I'll skip planting around the Silver Maple and do the two Crape Myrtles.... and maybe an Oak or two. I'm trying to lower my maintenance (a vacation is in order around here and it's getting so that it's impossible to leave) so adding a watering site would be a problem.