Hi RJR1,

A couple possibilities you might consider are Vinca minor, periwinkle, lavender flowers in spring, Lamium maculatum, 'Pink Pewter', soft pink flowers in spring (or any of the other L.m. varieties), or Galium odoratum, sweet woodruff, white flowers in spring. You could also put in a few sweet violets, Viola odorata, and they reseed like mad, so in a few years you'll have them all over the place. With Violets, once you get them they will be almost impossible to get rid of, so be sure you really want them before you get any. Or Lily-of-the-valley which spreads a lot after a couple years. Another one I just thought of is plumbago, Ceratostigma plumbaginoides which can be very agressive--I'm not sure what you're trying to do, but you have a very large area. Plumbago gets blue flowers in mid/late summer and the leaves usually turn bright red in fall. It also comes up pretty late in spring, so if you plant some, don't assume it's dead next spring--just wait for it! For the most part, song birds are going to be far more attracted to your feeders and birdbath than to any of these plants. Next winter get a bird bath heater to keep it from freezing. You'll have more birds in winter if you have both food and water available. Hummingbirds are attracted to flowers, but most of the red and deep pink ones that attract them are full sun perennials--or annuals.

Several of these are evergreen or semi-evergreen, and if you get one or more of those, you'd need to rake the leaves off of them in fall. Oak leaves are pretty tough and don't disintegrate easily, so even with non-evergreen plants I'd recommend cleaning them up at least by spring.

Happy gardening,
Skybird

Skybird...

Thank you for all your suggestions. Someone also suggested dragons blood sedum and "bunchberry". Have you any experience/knowledge about these? Will these also grow in shade and spread?

Go with the native Partridgeberry. It will survive fallen leaves, will spread and birds can eat the berries.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fact sheet on Mitchella repens

Hi RJR1,

I donÂt think youÂd be happy with ÂDragonÂs Blood or any of the other sedums. TheyÂre pretty much sun plants, and while theyÂd probably grow in part or even full shade (they grow almost anywhere!) I really donÂt think youÂd like the way they look. Even in sun ÂDragonÂs Blood can sometimes get real leggy looking.

I wasnÂt familiar with the other two, so I looked them up.

The one you suggested, Bunchberry, might be a possibility, but I donÂt know your soil conditions, so I canÂt be sure. HereÂs what I found.

Bunchberry - Cornus canadensis
Family: Dogwood (Cornaceae)
Height: 3-8 inches
Habitat:
Cool woods, mountain slopes
Shade, well drained sites preferred
Cool, acidic soil (ph 3.0 to 7.9)
Hardy to USDA Zone 3
Northern North America, south in mountains
Southern limit of range may be due to its preference for cool, acidic soils and its inability to survive in summer soils warmer than 65 degrees F.

ItÂs definitely hardy where you are! Do you have acidic soil? I wasnÂt familiar with it because apparently itÂs not grown out here because of our warm and very alkaline soil!

The one creatrix suggested, Partridgeberry, sounds like a pretty good possibility. HereÂs what I found out about it.

Soil Type - Well drained, humus rich, sandy loam
Soil pH - Neutral
Water - Moist to Dry
Light - Full shade
Height - 1-2 inches
Time of Bloom - June - July
Propagation - Division, slow spreading creeper

I donÂt know anymore about this one either, but if the fallen oak leaves can stay on it and the birds like to eat the berries, that sounds like a really big plus to me.

Since you have a large area, you might want to put in several different things for variety. Hardy ferns could be real pretty too. You also might want to post this on the New England Forum to see if you can find other things that like your local conditions. The things I suggested will grow pretty much anywhere and under any conditions.

Have fun making your decision and watching them grow,
Skybird

Instead of groundcovers per se, go with ferns, wildflowers and flowering shrubs - e.g. Rhododendrons if you don't have deer. Allium tricoccum will make a large expanse of early green, dies down in late spring and then blooms in summer and has interesting seed pods. Mertensia virginiana will also spread nicely and is beautiful in the spring. However, it dies down after setting seed.