There is hope! First, I recommend what Theryl said. Ferns and sorrel in the full shade. I might do ginger on my side yard but have not done so yet. I add ROCKS!. Dry river bed is a great way to add interest and it doesn't use water. Another plus, it can act as a swale. Follows is what we've accomplished in 10 months from nothing but trees and dirt to now. I am from TX and only gardened here for a year so I know something can be done. I'd never seen a redwood or anything so competitive. I am from the land of solid limestone and 90 days of over 100 heat; the land of 17 inches of rain in 2 years that only ends with flash floods that float your car; the land of thorns and poison and venom. I find redwoods every bit as challenging despite the beauty and 'lushness' of California. There's a reason redwoods are a surviving species! They are fit! Thanks to Kelly Marshall for guiding me at the beginning. We trimmed up our redwoods at our newly bought house that sit on a 45 degree pitch hill. Did so for light and fire. We have minimal soil, lots of redwood root competition, and little sun. Started with nothing but the trees. One part gets afternoon sun. In the "dark" I have dry riverbed and boulders with pockets for ferns that add interest. I have woodland strawberry that surprisingly works in a variety of areas. I have several native ferns up there. The competition was too much for native ribes and carpenteria even in the flats where the azalea has made it. The vaccinum ovatuum languishes as well. In the flats with dappled light I have azaleas in the ground and begonias in a pot and am considering a big pot with a Japanese maple. Anything within 7 feet of the redwood trunks on the hill struggle terribly. They suck up water like mad so go with plants that need minimal water. I hand water ferns once a week in summer and irrigate twice a week doing 3 rounds of short bursts each day of irrigation (2 days, 3 programs each day so as to not have run off on that hill. this hill is clay, My steeiest hill is super friable and another story) . In the areas that get afternoon sun I accent it with what will survive the competition: monkeyflower, Douglas Iris, Wayne Roderick Daisies, coyote mint. All pollinators as well. Have some manzanita to left as well as some full sun areas for pollen plants. CA agriculture has left us devoid of pollinators due to chemicals and non-natives. The succulent vignette is not with natives and was created by carving into the hill and stair stepping small shallow pond/fountain liners (Lowes), rocks and ferns with creeping geraniums (geranium macrorhizum from Berk. Hort) around it. The roots should leave the stuff in the pond liners alone but might the succulents might have made it without the protection - ? I just wanted to assure the planting was stable on the steep hillside. I wanted to assure enough aeration for succulent roots and I wanted planting pockets. Hope the photos show up well. As time goes by I will continue to experiment. Win some lose some but that's gardening. I am trying silver falls/pony foot/silver dichondra argentae (whatever locals call it) and succulents along the dry river bed. Just keep tucking and trying. Do NOT prune up redwood branches too radically or cut them down because they will strive to recur and grown tons of fronds from the bottom. Slowly but surely you will have something that excites you. AS for the guy that originally posted, hanging planters off the deck would help his situation. Don't always have to plant in the ground. Succulent vignette. The Douglas Iris is in front and has some brown leaves now. You can't see the blue green of the succulents but they excite the area and seem to get enough sun in the late day to make it OK. There are smallish boulders from American Soil supporting it all and hiding the pond liner. I can roll rocks but for the most part I used my husband. Dan Fix Landscaping installed my river bed (excellent).

Thanks for all the replies so far on this thread. Spruce: Somehow I knew you were going to recommend the Norway spruce! =) We have several mature NS on our property and they do well. The local farm market has several small potted (2 gallon?) NS trees on sale so I might check them out. smivies: Thanks for the ideas. We do have a couple of mature Douglas firs as well. They're fast growing for sure, but our particular specimens don't look all that great. Ours are not very dense, and you can see through them easily, so I neve really considered them as a possibility. We've never had any A. cephalonica so I'll ahve to do some research. Our white pines are quite drought tolerant but as you say, the soft wood makes for a poor windbreak. Our white pines, though beautiful, quite often drop branches during winds and storms. I'm growing several P. strobiformis from seed and they did very well this season (their first year). We'll see how they do this winter. The blue-green color is great! scotjute: Thanks for suggesting the Eastern Red Cedar. I'll take a look at that as well. We don'thave any of them so that might be interesting as well. Thanks again! We're open to suggestions =) Dave

It is nice to see so much enthusiams for Virginia pine, but if I were looking for a nice conifer to plant for an ornamental, this would be near the end of the list, unless I was a collector and had everything else. But it is native to a wide area and in that area if you want native trees, I guess this is a good tree. For a good specimen, I know of one much larger than the one described by beng. In Lacy woods park in Arlington, VA, to the west of the woodland growing in a semi-open location is a Virginia pine that is about 80 feet tall and almost two feet in Diameter. There is another one not quite so large growing nearby. They are reported to grow up to 120 feet on very good sites, but I have never seen anything approaching this. I don't know how old this tree is, but I would guess something like 70 years. But generally these are one of the shorter lived pine trees. Well, if you like this kind of tree, that is good--I love diversity, but on my 8 acres here in Winchester I don't think I have room for one, and I may have something like 95 kinds of trees so far and am still going. I guess I am posting this because I don't want too many people to decide to plant this tree instead of all the other possibilities and then be somewhat disappointed. I am usually a defender of out-of-favor trees, but in this case I advise a little caution before one becomes too enthusiastic. --Spruce

I've gotten a lot of great advice...thank you. I'm still struggling with the shape of the bed. Symmetrical I can do, but curves throw me off a bit because the informality. I do feel it necessary to adjoin it one way or another with my front hedge of boxwood, but I don't know that I necessarily want another rectangular planting bed around the tree. Then I feel like I'd be inclined to replicate that on the other side of my lawn. I also don't want to do a complete circle..I think of crop circles..and I don't want the tree out in limbo in my landscaping. It wouldn't work. So, I'm leaning towards a curved planting bed that adjoins my row of hosta along my front hedge of boxwood. As you are facing my house, in this order - A large maple tree on the city way on the left hand side of the house, city sidewalk, bed of pachysandra at base of retaining wall on each side of my straight centered walkway that runs to my front door, hedge of boxwood at top of retaining wall, straight row hostas behind my boxwood hedge, rectangular lawn, and another row of same hostas in front of my foundation plantings. ....And then a tree in there somewhere on the right hand side of my lawn. I like order, so this bed completely throws me off. LOL To keep a sense of formality, someone suggested planting the hostas in drifts...a layer affect of the same color of hosta, but different sizes with the largest towards the center, and that appeals to me since there's an order to it. However, since the planting bed will be assymetrical, I am struggling with placement since there won't be equal distances from one end to the other, and there is no real front or back...I have to visualize from different angles..neighbors driveway, facing my house, etc.,...I will have to play around with it, just having difficulty visualizing it. ..And I agree wholeheartedly, a gardeners work is never finished. I'm changing things around every year, but I enjoy every minute of it.