Planting Under Trees - Part 7

Mostly Natives and Other Tough Guys

 Last week, I told you about some special pets in the border under a maple and some black locusts. These plants needed extra watering and TLC to survive in the dry, rooty conditions under those trees.

 This week, I'll tell you about another bed around a group of mature trees in my USDA zone 7 garden. This one has a lot of inhabitants, most of whom are native to my woods. It's been in place with most of the residents for almost twenty years. The soil was not improved when these plants were planted. I probably added a bit of compost when I scratched a hole to plant them, but that was it. I do water the bed when we've had a spell of really dry weather, but it's the last one that gets watered. I've never fed anyone there, only decaying leaves and twigs provide a natural meal for these plants.

 Other than the bit of additional water, the only thing I do to this bed is rake most of the fallen leaves off in early spring so they don't smother everything. I will also pull the stray wild grape vine or bit of poison ivy that the birds seed into it and trim plants at the edges when they start looking ratty. It is truly a low maintenance area, but the plants seem to thrive on benign neglect.

 Again, this page will probably be slow to load for some of you because of the photographs, so please be patient.

 As you can see, this is a tightly packed group of trees. There's an oak (Quercus), a black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), a cottonwood (Populus deltoides) - which makes quite a mess when the seeds disperse - and a little unknown somebody (the small trunk on the left).

Like all our big trees, they were here when we built the house. This group is located on the other side of the path from the "pets" described last week and another branch of the path curves around in front of it. Separating this bit from the rest of the border is a large Azalea. To the right of this photo are a group of three old and very large Azaleas, next to the house.

 This photo was taken in April, when the Christmas ferns (Polystichum acrostichoides) are just uncurling their fronds, but the Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) are already up and open. The ferns have spread from the original three clumps and now occupy most of the ground on this side of the trees.