If you want shrubs, bridal wreath spirea is pretty carefree and does well in shade. If anything ever happens, like tree limbs falling on them, you just cut them back and they're off again. Plus it blooms in the spring before all the leaves are on the trees and is gorgeous. Maybe golden creeping jenny underneath for groundcover.

Or maybe grape hyacinth and golden creeping jenny. The hyacinths only need to be planted about 2-3 inches deep. After they bloom, the leaves look kind of like that mini-liriope.

And for what it's worth, my 'Thalia' daffodils are planted in the shade of a huge ash tree. They bloom before the leaves are on the trees, so technically, they're not in shade! ;-)

Marcy

thanks for your great ideas. :)

Jessica, are they fruiting mulberries? I wouldn't want a fruitless. What is the exposure on that strip? Does it get any sun during the day? I assume that to the left of the driveway is lawn, so the shade comes from only the right. Narcissus can bloom under deciduous trees, but the disadvantage is that they are only there in the spring.

You could put daffs and a ground cover such as vinca minor under shrubs such as forsythia, kerria, spirea, all of which can survive and bloom under deciduous trees. (I can give you starts of all of those if you want them.) The upside to these plants is that once established they don't need watering and very little mainenance. After a few years may need a little pruning

hi, thanks. i have daffodils in some areas, but it was too hard to dig holes for them. the mulberry are fruitless. all but one or two have to come out since it will be in the way of backing out. so any bush is out since it is only 4 feet or 3 feet from fence with driveway inbetween.

driveway is to left. i actually began thinking of woodland phlox and columbine. but digging a hole is not an option at this point. my hands are really bad now. it comes and goes. wasn't arthritis but dr. thinks from the bone spur and pinched nerve in back.

the area has some filtered sun. but if a wooden fence goes up then i don't see any sun reaching area until maybe late afternoon. not sure. yes, shade comes from the south, the right.

I haven't planted in rocky areas before, but for shade you might try:

Sedums
Oxalis
Galanthus
English Bluebells (great fragrance)
Daylilies
Iris do alright with some shade, but not full shade
Dianthus
Forget-me-nots
Trout lilies
Columbines
Lovage
Comfrey
Sweet woodruff
Ferns
Alpine strawberries

I don't know if your area would provide enough moisture for some of these things, but I hope it gives you some ideas. And Marcy is right, lots of spring bulbs bloom before the trees leaf- hyacinth, crocus, dwarf iris, early daffadils, etc. I'm sure you can come up with an beautiful border.

Andria

Jessaka,

I've been mulling over the 'rocky' issue in my mind and haven't been able to come up with a good answer because I don't know how rocky it is there.

On my brother's place south of Fort Worth, he had more rocks than soil, and it was very hard to find flowers that would grow well there except that wildflowers of all types did incredibly well there.

So, do you have something like a mix of 50% rocks and 50% soil or 80% rocks and 20% soil or 20% rocks and 80% soil, because I think the amount of rocks would influence what would thrive there.

Dawn