Sorry to hear about the confrontation with the neighbor. It's always good to have those survey markers put in so everything's clear from the start. But that's all in the past, so I hope your neighbor will calm down soon. We have a lot of those large oaks in our neighborhood, none with the classic shape, but it does give a nice dappled shade in which to garden and relax. The mulch is a good idea, but I'd like to see a grouping of plants there under the tree, sort of drawn out so they look natural - you can use understory trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs. The following are listed as thriving best in fertile, humusy soil with good drainage and light shade (4-6 hours of sun) and are also deer resistant (but remember that deer will eat just about anything if hungry enough); those with an asterisk can take more shade. A lot will depend on whether that oak is "limbed-up" and the amount of dappled sunlight coming through the canopy. Understory Trees: Amelanchier* (serviceberry), eastern redbud, witchhazel Shrubs: Caryopteris, Japanese Plum Yew, daphne*, grape holly, leucothoe, pieris*, skimmia japonica*, snowberry Perennials, biennials, bulbs, etc. Monkshood*, columbine, jack-in-the-pulpit, astilbe*, baptisia australis, boltonia, brunnera*, northern sea oats*, cimicifuga*, corydalis*, dicentra*, digitalis purpurea, ferns, euphorbia, filipendula (meadow sweet), sweet woodruff*, hakonechloa macra (golden variegated hakone grass), helleborus*, blue oat grass, daylily, candytuft (iberis sempervirens), siberian iris, Virginia bluebells* (mertensia virginica), monarda, forget-me-not (myosotis alpestris), daffodils, mondo grass*, pennisetum, polemonium* (Jacob's ladder), pulmonaria* (lungwort), rodgersia, celadine poppy*, tiarella*, tradescantia, trillium, rhubarb. Groundcovers: ajuga reptans* (bugleweed), lily-of-the-valley*, spotted deadnettle*, pachysandra*, obedient plant, mayapple, As you can see, your options are rather limited ;-) Pieris is one of my favorites - evergreen, early flower clusters, quite hardy and pest & disease resistant when grown in at least partial shade, many varietes now from which to choose. Wouldn't be without those spring bulbs. Tiarella blooms for at least a month here, and the dicentra eximia (fernleaf, or wild, bleeding heart) blooms all season except for the hottest part of summer. Polemonium and cimicifuga can give some height. Leucothoe is another favorite - evergreen, low maintenance, different varieties available. Amelanchier has many good attributes; it has lovely white flowers in the spring, followed by berries that the birds love, and some varieties have excellent fall color. If you get impatient for spring, consider a hellebore or two; they take a while to get established, but some varieties start blooming here in February and hold those blooms a very long time. As the sun moves across the sky, so moves the shade cast by the tree. Many shade plants appreciate morning sun and afternoon shade. Remember that anything you plant will be competing with the oak for nutrients and water, so, unless you pick plants that prefer dry shade, you'll want to compensate for that. Best of luck ... I think you could wind up with a lovely spot there ... you might even eventually decide to put a garden bench or a few Adirondack chairs in the vicinity.

That is a hilarious request! We see it every year, too. The only grass that comes close is St Augustine and not Floratam. If that is all the damage your dog has done, then St Aug should work. It will need deep water once per week as will ANY grass you put in. The difference with St Aug is that it's the only southern grass which will tolerate any shade. And it will tolerate a lot more than you have. Chances are you already have St Aug back there. If that's the case you can nurse that until it spreads to cover the entire area. All it needs is weekly water and mowing at the highest setting. You can mow once per week or once every 2 or 3 weeks. If you want it to fill fast, then I would fertilize with an organic fertilizer once per month. I like alfalfa pellets at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet as a fertilizer. Get it in 50-pound bags at your local feed store - sold as rabbit chow. Apply by hand for that small area. Water deeply once per week. Deep means a full inch as measured by several cat food or tuna cans set out in the yard. For that area I would use an oscillator sprinkler. It might take many hours to fill the cans, so don't be surprised. Don't look now but your dog photobombed your picture.

El, Not knowing your house water system layout and how you have done your irrigation take off from it, I could only makes a guess as to what is happening. The refrigerator ice maker is usually tapped onto a copper waterline stub coming from the wall behind the refrigerator. It should be part of the line that your outside house faucet line comes from. Are your front yard and backyard on two different water sources. I would expect you to have problems with other appliances and faucets in your house. Are you experiencing more air in your water? My recommendation at his point is to have a plumber/irrigation installer or anyone that can troubleshoot your water system. I would end up recommending something they would do very quickly but you may find difficult. I would take pressure readings at different points in your system. You may have a defective pressure regulator. Has the pressure at at your indoor faucets and washing machine gone down? Remove your irrigation connection and test the pressure and flow from that point. Remove the closest head to the each front yard zone valve and turn on each front zones. Listen and observe what happens at those removed irrigation heads. A slight hissing noise can either be a suction or too much air in the water. Either way it bodes that there may be a leak before the valves. The main idea I am trying to say is to check your water mainline sources. Your house is not old enough to have serious constriction of your waterlines from calcium build up. Hope you solve your problem and have a Happy New Year. JMHO Aloha

You can use a tiller to till those "weeds" back into the soil. They have been growing there, removing nutrients from that soil, and as long as there are no seeds formed they will be digested by the Soil Food Web and put those nutrients back into the soil without adding more "weed" seeds. The pruners could be used to cut that hedge down, depending on the thickness of the branches for the roots. The pruners may help you cut the hedge down enough to be able to get a chain saw in if that is necessary. Depending on the type of hedge you may need to remove the roots also, or that hedge may grow back from the roots. What ever that hedge is it can be chipped up to use as mulch, again because that hedge grew there removing nutrients from the soil that you will need to replace from somwhere.