Plants You have a lot. I'm not on site so hard to tell, but from the pics I'd probably remove all the plants from the pond and vacuum or scoop the bottom with a swimming pool leaf rake. When removing the plants note how deep they are. Moving them to deeper water might be an issue. For everything other than lilies moving plants to more shallow water, or even above the water is almost always better for the plants, so that would be OK if you like. Then I could assess the plants and pond better. Pots, baskets, directly plants? Can pots be reused? I can now see the pond without plants. How's it look to me? Were some plants hiding something that I want to continue to hide? I come up with a plan. Buy replacement pots? Maybe reduce the number of species returned to the pond. If the plants are planted directly in soil, not pots, you really have to empty the pond and deal with the plants. Fish have to be moved. That's a whole deal I won't get into now. Most (all) the plants will have to be divided. Depends on when last done. I just made a post on this. Most of dealing with plants just has to be learned with experience. But here's some things you may not know... When removed from the pond the plants can stay out of water for a really long time. Weeks, even months. The leaves may die back but the roots (rhizomes) last a long time out of water. Keeping them in water can actually cause rot. You can also plant them in regular garden pots with dirt, same as a regular garden plant, and just keep them well watered and they grow great. This is true for every plant except lilies, floaters and plants that grow completely underwater. Some times if you look up a plant on the web or printed on the label when buying a plant it will say 6" of water, or 12" of water, or whatever. Many people think that means the plant must be in that much water. This is actually the maximum depth the plant can take. Most of these do better the less water. Even planted in the yard many of these plants will do well. Here in Phoenix many kinds of "pond plants" are used in yards. This is because "pond plant" isn't really a very good term... "vernal pool plant" would be better. They've adapted to living in standing water and also dry periods when there's no water which is what a vernal pool is. So knowing this can make your life easier, more options. Plants inside the pond = more work. So reducing them will be less work in the future. You can put some of these into pots around the edge of the pond, or in the ground, or switch to other kinds of plants around the edge. Gives you the same lush look with way less work and the pond appears much larger. Here are some pics of a pond I built in San Jose CA to demonstrate. No plant is inside the pond. And here the pot on the left is a "pond plant" called Horsetail Rush. It's a foam pot with no drainage hole, soil from the yard. This plant, like most "pond plants" can be very invasive, but no problem in a pot. And no drainage holes means no straining from leaking water (the pot on the right need drainage and therefore a catch pan under it). Go on vacation for a week or two the pot is fine with no watering. When it's time to divide it's no big deal.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I really appreciate getting some good ideas. This spot has been a problem for a few years and as I mentioned is getting worse. I have to be very careful what I plant however. DH just last year pulled out all of the vinca ground cover I had around part of the back and the north side of our house due it being too hardy and covering over the bushes and sidewalk. lol He has spotted a few trying to come back and he has already said he is going after them so I know whatever I plant must not vine. I like the Asian Jasmine very much and I believe the right color variety would look good with the photinias. If we could do as Dawn mentioned and just mow them to keep them off the bushes it might work and they might be able to withstand the late sun they will get. I also love thrift. I have had it as mixed ground cover in front of my house for years and it was just breath taking many springs and falls as well. But something happened to it in the last year or so...either the floods or the ice storms. It is trying to make a come back but is pretty sparse as of now. I know it can take sun since my house faces west and gets intense heat. It has been a challenge to find one which meets all my needs in this spot and is something DH will tolerate as well.....lol. Oh and BTW I forgot to mention it will have to be able to endure being trampled when DH prunes the photinias...lol. I think Ajuga is very nice ground cover but I really don't think it would survive the conditions I have. The purple heart I know to be a very hardy and pretty plant and low maintance but I agree Dawn it might look a little like overkill with the photinias. I find a twig of it in some of my beds around here occasionally so I am sure some of my neighbors must have it. Speaking of plants coming from neighbors...I had a battle last summer with the green variety of "jew" coming up EVERYWHERE around here. I didn't think I would ever get rid of it. Apparently seed must have washed through the yard during all the flooding rains. From the plants you all have mentioned I think the only two which might work are the Asian Jasmine or the thrift. I wonder if the thrift will have too much roots for me with all those power lines? I know the ones I planted in front came in half gallon pots. Yikes! But perhaps we could have the electric company come out and mark the lines so we can avoid them....it is pretty scary. Since this spot of my yard is in perfect view from my patio I need to do something with it. It looks pretty ugly right now with so much bare soil showing. Even thought DH gives the photinias a severe pruning pretty often and tries to keep them from being too tall still the bare spot is growing larger each year. Thank you all for your helpful suggestions and I will let you know what I end up doing. I have had so much else going on lately I have given little thought to any kind of gardening. After last year I am pretty disgusted with it to tell you the truth. It was THE WORST season for me EVER. And Dawn...no we have not been traveling. We have kept busy with going through our entire property and doing a massive clean out. I hope to have a huge garage sale and cut way down on things around here. I just want to SIMPLIFY. We finally redecorated our master bedroom and bathroom too....so we have kept very busy all winter. Now I am just ready for WARMTH. Lots of sunshine and WARMTH! Thank ya'll! G.M.

I am confused. Do you have 1 acre in woodland, or 1 acre total with woodland strips? In any case I would not mow or "dig up" roots. Weeds and invasive exotics take advantage of DISTURBED areas. Disturbed means disturbing the soil so that fresh weed seeds are brought to the surface and new weed seeds find freshly dug soil to land on. Disturbed also means EDGES - placed where clearing has caused the woodland shade to suddenly have sun sloping in. To avoid disturbed soil, mulch and cut undesirables off at ground level and paint stubs with with concentrated weedkiller. Honeysuckle and poison ivy are best eliminated this way. The cost and env impact are minimal. I use a medicine dropper in one hand and pruners in the other. You can't avoid having edges to your shaded woodland, so be prepared to mulch heavily at edges, or plant native woodies at edges to soak up the sun. After a little extra attention when first planted, they will be zero maintenance. I have found that my fallen leaves eventually blow off my 2 acres of clay woodland. If I leave the small fallen branches instead of tidying up, the leaves stay, make good contact with the soil, and produce a humous-y layer. Please don't mow. You will only disturb things more and eventually give up or have to resort to large volume use of herbicide. Woodland requires work at first (I personally think any low maintenance landscape is an oxymoron.), but it will get easier and more beautiful. If you have just strips of woodland, then you have all edges, no real woodland, and you should just landscape it with shrubs and mulch like you would any other garden bed. Mowing "natural areas" just produces dust which you will breathe, and more branched woody understory shrubs.

Given the consistency between tests, I don't see too much chance that all four are off, no. Let's begin at the beginning. All recommendations are for everything except the holly, which actually likes soil like this (there are plenty of plants that actually prefer poor soils). For the most part, I won't quote the holly bed in the stuff below. Big point: stop using the compost. It's probably got way too much phosphorus in it. Standard depth of soil testing is 4 inches, so some numbers aren't quite as bad as they look. I'll adjust recommendations accordingly. ME 10-13: Sand with silt, and a nice place to be. Once we stabilize this--in a few years as it's really far off--you can probably test every 2 or 3 years and be fine. pH 4.8 - 5.5: Very low, but not the lowest I've ever seen by a long shot. My own initial test was below 4.8--4.3 if memory serves. We'll fix this under calcium, magnesium, and potassium below. OM 5-12%: Good to extraordinary, and you don't need any more at this time. While I wouldn't mind seeing the Right Bed area come up to match the others, I don't want it badly enough to add more phosphorus! Sulfur 13-15: Completely normal numbers and entirely appropriate. Phosphorus 1282-2187: You don't quite take the crown for highest phosphorus I've ever seen (that was over 2,400), but it's close. Avoid any and all phosphorus sources (hence the recommendation to avoid the compost). Soybean meal is OK as it only contains 1% P versus 6.25% N. However, even with organics, never use anything that's above a 1:4 P:N ratio. That pretty much means soybean meal. Calcium 37-54%: The Right Bed is actually not awful, while everything else needs a serious boost. In this case, with your low pH, I don't recommend dolomitic limestone--use a good calcitic like Encap, Mag-I-Cal, or Pennington Fast Lime. But don't throw out the dolomite, I want you to use that as well to raise the magnesium levels at the same time (just very slowly). Magnesium 4.3-7.1: Low to low-ish. 30 lb/K of dolomitic this year will very slowly work to raise this. It's not an emergency, most plants do OK at 4%, they just prefer around 10 in a soil of your EC. Potassium 1.0-1.5%: Quite low, the floor value would be around 2.5%. I'm actually a fan of being in the 4-5% range. We use potassium sulfate (sulfate of potash) to fix this, which you can get from some garden or landscape stores, or they'll order it for you. Minor Elements: I wouldn't mind fiddling with boron, but you have so many other issues that I don't wish to do that--and I'm not completely sure what will release from the organic matter in your soil. So hands off that for this year. Iron is great, none is needed. Copper 36-60 PPM: These are through the roof...and there's not much we can do about it. Some types of organic matter (manure compost, I'm looking at you, here) will contain large amounts of some elements. Apparently yours had excessive copper. I have to do some research to be sure, but this shouldn't be much of a problem...I hope...however, avoid any copper source, no matter how small. Zinc is also quite high, but that's not a problem. Aluminum is extremely high, but raising your pH will overcome any possible problems from that. It's not an issue unless pH is below 5, and not a severe issue until under 4.5. Recommendations: Now: Apply 9 pounds per thousand square feet Encap, Mag-I-Cal, or Pennington Fast Lime. Apply 15 pounds per thousand dolomitic limestone. June 1: Apply 3 pounds per thousand square feet potassium sulfate. September 15: Apply 3 pounds per thousand square feet potassium sulfate. October 15: Apply 9 pounds per thousand square feet Encap, Mag-I-Cal, or Pennington Fast Lime to everything except the Right Bed--apply 3 pounds per thousand there. Apply 15 pounds per thousand dolomitic limestone everywhere.