groundcover for poor, clay shade area
iarizzo
16 years ago
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Vicki
16 years agoblue_velvet_elvis
16 years agoRelated Discussions
Rock hard uneven clay soil, bermuda sod, and a poor owner
Comments (5)Yeah there are a couple of things... The Bermuda Bible has been updated this summer, but not on this website. It's on another one. If you Google it, I believe the first result is the right one. I cannot link you to it because that violates the terms of service here at GW. Ask me how I know that!! Baby shampoo is perfectly fine. Why? Because baby shampoo never has conditioners in it. If you use a shampoo with conditioners, who knows what will happen. Oils and soils don't work well together. So any clear shampoo should work fine. I also like baby shampoo because it doesn't have any other additives or fragrances. The shampoo should work better than an aerator. Aerators are hard to use and a little on the dangerous side. I'd stick with shampoo a few times unless and until you are dissatisfied with it. Give it a month and apply at least 2 times. Sometimes it takes a few more apps, but give it the good ol' "college try." Do not expect the soil to become mushy. What happens is the shampoo allows the water to penetrate deeper into the soil. The deep moisture sets up the perfect environment for the beneficial fungi to grow in the soil. Those guys take weeks to fill the soil, so you won't get soft soil right away. And the soil will only be soft feeling when it is moist. As it dries out between watering, it will firm up again. Is shade an issue anywhere in your lawn? If you have bermuda on the north side of a fence, building, bush, or tree, it's going to thin out. You'll have to come up with something else for those areas. Don't try using seed to fill in the thin areas. Seeded bermuda and sodded bermuda are completely different animals. If you mix them it will look weedy forever. You should be fertilizing bermuda every month with something. Read the Bermuda Bible and it gets specific about which one to use. Beyond that, and in addition to that, I would strongly urge you to use an organic fertilizer application at least once per year. Texas weed used an organic program at home and a chemical program on his sod farm. He knows both. He wrote the Bermuda Bible suggesting only chemicals, because he believes it to be the most successful for bermuda. His only problem with organics was the cost for the frequent heavy doses of fertilizer. Having said that, there are people here on GW who use only organics on bermuda and they are very happy with it. Be sure you get before and after pictures of both the front and back. Sometimes you see things in the pictures that you did not notice walking around in it. Many of us have seen hundreds of lawn pix. It is not unusual at all for us to see things you weren't even concerned about....See MoreLooking for Invaisive Groundcover for Dry Shade
Comments (17)Another that will spread wildly in dry shade is euphorbia -- robbii or chameleon are both good. They have neat succulent foliage, a bit less than a foot tall, with a cluster of chartreuse green (robbii) or maroon (chameleon) brachts above most of the summer. One plant will make a three foot circle in a summer. I am currently digging a bunch of e. robbii out of my iris beds, so let me know if you want it and I'll send you as much as you'd like -- I love it under my pinetrees up the slope. LynnT...See Morewhat to plant under cypress tree in dry shade clay/dirt area?
Comments (10)If coreopsis is blooming under the tree, it isn't completely shaded. You might try a low growing evergreen shrub, such as one of the hollies, or even ornamental grasses such as Penesetum alopecurides "Hameln" or "Little Bunny." The grasses will die on top, but the dried tops look lovely all winter with their fuzzy flowerheads and tan foliage. They reshoot in the spring....See MoreGroundcover for full shade, wet, clay
Comments (11)I would probably also go with a mix of shrubs and perennials (with pine straw in between) and avoid the ground-covers, for fear of them being aggressive. You could also make a simple path (bark chip or gravel) to occupy some of the space. I agree that you need to pull out the ivy first. We have cleared now about 1/3-1/2 acre of solid, knee-deep ivy, and if you don't get the roots out, it will come back. My husband "strimmed" the tops off as much as possible with one of those machines, so that we could at least see the root area (he's not very sensitive to poison ivy, which we also had a lot of). Then we've pulled it out by hand. Because the roots are so woody, you can pull them out quite successfully (unlike Mondo, which breaks off and leaves little pieces in the ground that then grow back). Here are a few other possibilities for perennials/shrubs (some evergreen): - Tiarella (Mobot says it needs constant moisture but that wet soil in winter will be fatal). I have some in full shade that is doing really well. I believe it is evergreen here (but not certain). Its native. - Big-leaved architectural plants like Fatsia japonica, Ligularia, Farfugium, Rodgersia (some of these are evergreen). - Actaea racemosa (same as Cimicifuga racemosa or Bugbane, this is native) - Lobelia (native too) if you have a spot with some sun There's also a dwarf form of the Sweetspire Esh suggested (Itea Virginica Little Henry), which gets only about 12-18" high. I bought an Illicium floridanum "Shady Lady" recently (at Pike, and HD has them at the moment too). It says it can tolerate full shade (I'm thinking of putting mine in full shade) and Jeff_AL on this forum told me his needed constant moisture, so that might be an evergreen shrub possibility for you (it gets about 6' tall). I'm linking below to a thread on the Perennials forum with a similar question. Here is a link that might be useful: perennials thread...See Moredirtdoctortoo
16 years agoiarizzo
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11 years ago
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