There may be an issue to adding much topsoil if it is on top of the treess roots. I am told that they will not tolerate too much added on top of them in one season.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/carolgard/msg0522023710595.html as

I agree with you about the toxins. What you need are plants that are both shade and drought tolerant.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/garden/262984-growing-grass.html

I would go with shade loving ground covers. For a red maple I have, I grew pacasandra around the bases with some hosta. My area might be more moist than yours though.

I would first question the role of the giant silver maple in the soil at the border of your property.

1. Is the soil filled with roots, thus killing the grass in the area? If so, then there's not much chance of establishing a new lawn unless the tree is killed or removed.

2. Will the poison, probably RoundUp, kill the maple as well as the old vegetation? Has the neighbor considered that?

3. If the maple survives, it may well send its roots into your raised beds - nice new food there.

Claire

It sounds like if the goal is to get something to grow there you'll need to take the tree out. I agree with the previous responses -- I don't think the options the neighbor wants to do will work. Tilling existing soil with roots will injure the tree and so will putting new soil on top. Maples are known for not being able to grow things under. If you take the tree out you could replace it with a smaller flowering type tree that would provide interest in the spring and not drink up all the water.

Evonne, I had forgotten about the topsoil/tree roots issue, probably in my zeal to plant more peonies. :-) Thanks for reminding me. This is a full sun spot, though - - the tree is north of this spot - - so shade plants won't fare well.

Claire, good point about the roundup killing the maple. He seems to think it will only kill the grass and weeds.

Sedum, I would love for them to take the tree out (as well as the mulberry that hangs over my driveway), as it sends its seeds all over my lawn! But it's huge and they spent a fortune pruning and wiring it last year, so I'm pretty sure they want to keep it. It is entirely on their property (aside from the roots on mine).

This is the classic problem of someone wanting something (in this case, grass) that just won't work in that space, and being unwilling to make the compromises necessary to get it. I had given up on that spot years ago, but am now trying to come up with solutions to prevent the whole area from being poisoned. Maybe sedums would do ok, in a non-raised bed?

I will suggest the removal of the tree, but I don't suspect they will go for that. I may have to just stand my ground and insist they do nothing on my property, then let them make their own mistakes on theirs. If the tree dies, I won't be too upset anyway. Then I could go ahead and plant my peony bed!

Thanks, all, for the dose of reality!

I don't know if RoundUp will kill maples, but if it were my tree, I'd research the subject before I slopped the stuff around the roots.

Claire

Paige, contrary to the generaly negative consensus about your prospects I think that if you start thinking 'out of the box' you may come up with a crative solution.
First of all, forget about grass-lawn unless you are willing to see what you see right now.
However, if you are looking for something uniformly green all year around, look for the expance of pachysandra instead of the grass.
You still could create large full sun bed starting from the point where you have hydrangea paniculata and going all way down to the joint on a public walkway. Do you need such size bed or not is a different question, but I'm quite positive about ability to make such bed.
Re: siver/sugar maple. Out of the radius of 15-18' of the trunk you could have a fairly decent selection of plants to choose from, the farther you going out your selection will be broader and broader by every foot. And at 25'+ distance you may completely forget about maple's presence nearby.

OH SORRY! I was apparently onto my own red maples. :) Full sun drought tolerant plants should be good. Those kind of plants seem very tough! I would not go shrubs though, you don't want to be digging too deep with all the important roots for the maple running close to the surface.

I like sedum for some of the drier areas. I heard lambs ears are great, but I lost mine. They did not reseed for come back the next year. Some ornamental grasses might be nice.

Camomile seems to grow out of the sand. There are a lot of roadside plants that seem to do well in sand too. Portulaca is nice, but you have to plant it every year.

Looking into wildflower mixes might be a plan. I read that a lot of those can be drought resistant. I planted a mix from Utah someone gave me one year that was specially formulated for low water requirements. That was very pretty.

http://landscaping.about.com/cs/landscapeplans/a/drought_plan_3.htm

http://landscaping.about.com/cs/landscapeplans/a/drought_plan.htm

http://homeharvestseeds.com/ferrymorsewildflowers.htm

Hi George! The property strip in question is actually on the opposite side of my house. I'll try to post a better picture later, this was all I had of my house (and for the record, it's old and lots of stuff has been planted since then!).

So the base of the silver maple is only about 6-8 feet from my property line.

evonne, thanks for the suggestions. I guess I'm going to have to see if I can talk him out of using the roundup in his yard. If not, I'll just wait until after.

OK, I popped out and took a couple of pictures. Here they are:

and

See how close the silver maple is? I measured, and I actually have about a 4 foot wide stretch to plant on, if I so choose. You can also see that whatever he puts into his soil will drain directly through mine and onto my driveway. :-(

Paige, I would talk to the neighbor and propose to plant a row (possibly a double row) of spireas along your driveway, starting from the sidewalk, going parallel to the driveway (3' out of its edge for the snow removal) and curving to the corner of the neighbor's house. Then to fill remaining space between spirea hedge and maple by pachysandra.
Culturaly this will work (both plants will tolerate maple presence), will it please you aestheticaly is unknown to me factor.
BTW, I will prune my spireas tomorrow and if you wish to I could save all those zillion cuttings will be available after the act :-))

Thanks, George, I really like that plan! Will the pachysandra be ok in the sun, though? I removed it from my front yard after my tree died and was removed because it turned crispy pretty quickly.

Do you think there's any chance of sneaking a peony or three between the hedge of spirea and my drive? Snow removal wouldn't affect peonies, and the full sun is right, but I don't know about the maple roots.

I spoke to my neighbor's wife and she didn't realize he was planning on poisoning the whole area. She agreed that the idea of grass is questionable in the current circumstances and said she would talk to him about their plans for that tree. I would hate to plan a bed around it and find out they are going to remove it anyway in a year or so.

Thanks for the offer on the cuttings, but I wouldn't know how to care for them! I haven't reached that level yet . . .

George -- OT (slightly): I know you prune your spirea early and hard (to the ground, if I recall?), before they bloom, but I am curious because my "Pruner's Bible" and other sources all say to prune after bloom, because spirea set the buds for next year's bloom after they bloom. So do you get bloom (you must, I assume)? I am just very confused ... aren't you pruning off the flowers for the spring?

Paige -- have to say I LOVE spirea and I think George has a great solution. There are several interesting cultivars these days, so you aren't limited to the traditional, old-fashioned white bridal wreath/veil variety (which gets very large -- my mother had them). There's one called Double Reeves spirea (S. cantoniensis ÂLanceataÂ) with double, pure white flowers and blue-green leaves on 3- to 6-foot-tall plants. Another is Snowmound (S. nipponica ÂSnowmoundÂ) which gets 3Â5 feet tall. And BabyÂs-breath spirea (S. thunbergii) with lacy white flowers on 3- to 5-foot leafless stems, ÂMt. Fuji with variegated foliage. S. prunifolia ÂPlena with double white flowers (grows to 7 feet) with orange-red fall foliage.

And White Flower Farm carries one called "White Gold" and another called "Fairy Queen" -- I'm curious to hear what experiences people have had with some of these cultivars...

I have pachysandra planted in a dense patch on the south side of the house. They are in full sun and are very healthy. I am guessing your plants got toasted by the sudden change in circumstances. It was probably like going out in the sun after the long hard winter without sunscreen.

http://www.eburgess.com/detail.asp?pid=7156

I was reading about the Bridal White Spirea, and they sound great. Someone mentioned that they would be large though.

Quote from the link: Hardy even in coldest areas grows and blooms in sun or shade, in any soil, tolerates smoke, AND UNFAVORABLE CITY CONDITIONS, AND GROWS FAST. The Bridal White Spirea grows to 6 feet tall.

The plants are inexpensive and it sounds like a very quick fix. I googled some of the photos and they are very pretty in bloom too!

Ctlady, if you are talking about S. prunifolia or S.nipponica cultivars (white flowers) they are indeed bloom on a previous year growth and therefore need to be pruned right after the bloom. All of them become fairly tall and IMO are not suitable for Paige's particular case.
However in my suggestion I had in mind S.japonica, which blooms on a current year growth. I cut them to 6-8" in early April, they bloom toward the end of May- early June and if sheared (up to 1/3 of the height) after the bloom will rebloom later in a season. There are many cultivars of S.japonica available and most of them will be in 3-4' range which will perfectly suit for the low hedge.
Paige, I agree with evonnestoryteller that demise of your pachysandra should be attributed to the abrupt change of growing conditions. No doubts, freshly planted one should be watered at the very beginning (first season at least) in order to start going, but once established it will be self-sufficient, even in a such unhospitable conditions as yours. Beauty of pachysandra (in this case) that you and your neighbor wouldn't need to dig anything in order to plant it. Just add 2-3" layer of top soil over the area where you want it to be, ask our fellow CT swappers to bring you unwanted pachy (expect driving home with a several large garbage bags of it, LOL) and plant it effortlessly.
P.S. Spirea's cuttings don't need any care. They will simply root in any kind of soil, in pots or in ground. If you wish to, I could root them for you.

http://www.pottedliners.com/plants_spir.htm

Here is a page of S. Japonica. They have a big selection! I noted the different sizes. Some are good foundation plantings. For the Pink Parasols, they emphasize what a great groundcover it is.

http://www.pottedliners.com/pink_parasol.htm

Round Up will not kill that maple. It won't kill the tiny ones with only a few leaves even when wiped directly on them. They lose their leaves for a time and then are growing again within the season.

Thanks, all for the spirea links and input. I actually prefer the bridal wreath and similar varieties to japonica, but I guess they have the habit of becoming unruly. Maybe the dwarf varieties?

George, could you put some cuttings aside for me, just in case? I haven't heard back from the neighbors with respect to their plans, so I'm still in "wait and see" mode. But I will propose this plant to them.

Tomakers, I didn't realize roundup had no effect on maples. I still prefer they don't use it, particularly on our border. I think there are better solutions that that, even if we just used corn gluten meal as a pre-emergent weed killer if they really, really want to try grass again.