I have a large maple in the front yard--the roots of course are near the surface and have spread into the bed near the house. In that bed, I've had to dig holes and put new hostas in plastic pots and spin out bags. They are doing fine. I use "root assassin" shovels to dig through the roots. You didn't mention the type of trees--that makes a difference.

i consider grass one of the most invasive weeds on the face of the earth ... it grows anywhere ... with or without water.. or soil ... etc ...

if it wont grow under a given tree ... imo.. that is a good sign of how easy it will be.. to grow other things under it ...

let alone hosta.. which are water loving plants ..

if you plant under a tree... that is an over aggressive water hog ... and you water only the plants under the tree .. riddle out where the tree will grow roots... in the disturbed hole you dug to put the plant in ...

all that said ... just give it a go ... and use larger plants instead of tiny babes ... and use the old workhorses .. like the undulata clan ... and see if you can win the battle .. sometimes it works .... nothing like coming back in 5 years.. and telling me i was full of cow produced digested material .. lol ...

stuff wont die outright.. or fast ... it just wont thrive.. giving you plenty of time .. to see how its all working ...

below is a pic or 2 of silver maple roots ...

are you still thinking about going to the grand rapids show??? .. take lots of pix if you do.. plx ...

ken

I also use many spin out bags and a few buried pots. I don't cut any roots that are 2 inches (or over) in diameter. I agree that it would be good to know what kind of tree/s you have. Division is best early spring before the hosta has unfurled or a month or two before your frost date. I would not divide Golden Tiara to just one eye but would try to have a minimum of five eyes per division. But, as Ken said, larger clumps of hostas would survive better.

It is true that the hostas planted near trees survive. Many times they just don't thrive. At year three or so you finally get the message that the hosta is surviving but is not showing any new growth. I always find that rather disappointing. That's why I decided to get some spin out bags.

Is it possible you could cut some lower branches to allow some dappled sunlight to come through?

Ken, if you come back to this post, why are silver maples worse than others? I read through quite a few threads here regarding tree roots. We have lots of sugar maples in our yard (which sounded to be not quite as difficult to grow under?), but no silvers. Only asking out of curiosity.

Just wanted to echo what newhostalady mentioned about cutting lower branches. I like our trees to look natural, but trimming lower branches does make a huge difference in getting some sun down there.

norways are the worst ... especially as a grass killer ... and part of it.. is how thick the canopy is.. no light gets thru it ...

dad and i planted a silver maple at our new house.. when i was 5 years old ... by the time mom moved out 50 years later ... it was hard to grow much of anything under it for at least 20 feet ... so.. just personal experience and stories here .. and btw.. it was 60 or 70 feet tall by then ...

japanese maple.. obviously are a much smaller tree ... but when i had one that got to 10 or 15 feet..it had a mat like root structure i could not get a shovel into ...

i know nothing about sugar maples ...

ken

I love this quote, "i consider grass one of the most invasive weeds". Good one!

Hello everyone thank you so much for your input and angt29 and Ken for the time to upload photos! Angt29 thank you for your plant suggestions! I will give it a go.

ken, I have no idea what kind of trees we have :-) all I know is that they aren’t Maples and not evergreens :-)

About your thoughts with grass... I have one tree where I stuck plain small hostas in (which I got all from the neighbors lot - vaccant with permission of owner) didn’t bother with soil and they came back this year looking great. However EVERYBODY in my neighborhood has those and it looks boring. I was just thinking if I do go and buy like 10 hostas of one kind to plant around an other tree, what you guys have had good experiences with :-)

Hi Ken, my husband said he would want to start taking some of those nasty Buckthorn bushes out in the backyard. Yeah!!! I don’t want him to be distracted by a garden walk lol and alone I don’t like to drive in the USA a long distance. I like the Autobahn, but not the highways hahaha

if it does rain I think we will head there and I will take pictures.

Die Autobahn ist auch nicht mehr das, was sie früher war. Ich hab gar keinen Spaß mehr auf langen Strecken. Zu viele Baustellen und Laster...

Why don't you just put some potted hosta under that tree? I dug out a lot of hosta which had been living near the Thuja, they stopped growing after 3 years and they are back in pots now and you can see how happy they are. Their roots were totally full with brown tree roots...

Thanks for the info, Ken.

Good luck with what you choose, Claudia. I see what you're looking for in terms of one type to ring around the tree. I do think the tiaras you already have would do a very good job, unless you feel like you already have too many. They are so vigorous and do very well under trees. Help to keep weeds down as well because they grow so thickly.

If you take some pictures of the trees along with some close ups of the leaves, we can probably help ID them.

Hallo liebe Karin.. meine Eltern haben mir schon erzählt wie streng es mittlerweile in Deutschland geworden ist. Ist es wahr, dass nicht mal mehr der Beifahrer ein Handy haben darf?

here st least in Michigan I find it hard that all major road signs are written in the same same size as a road in a neighborhood. Often times I can’t read it that fast. Finding your way around in Germany even if you are in a unfamiliar area is a bit easier. My husband is Canadien and he said it’s harder for him too. I think Canada is much more like Europe.

The plants towards the center of the circle where one eye hostas which I dug out buried underneath a lot of fallen leaves. There was so much plant material about to die because it didn’t get any light. The ones on the outer edge (obviously grew back bigger) are the ones that had a chance to unfurl properly before I took them.

anyways... all these didn’t cost me a dime but they aren’t really that pretty...

do you guys think Krossa Regal would work? If not I stick with the Tiara. I started to devide them this year the first time and they seam to do respond well to devision.

Claudia, das Handyverbot gilt so weit ich weiß nur für den Fahrer und z.B. für Fahrlehrer...als normaler Beifahrer darf man noch telefonieren. Mein Sohn hat mit seiner Familie zwei Jahre in Kentucky gelebt, sie fanden das Fahren dort auch sehr unsicher und die langen Strecken sehr ermüdend...Hier bei uns ist alles so schön nah zusammen :-)

The hosta under that tree look nice and if you want to change the look you could put some potted hosta between them, something yellow or variegated would make a big difference...

I think your tree looks nice. You must have gotten a lot of plants from that yard! It is very solid green, but it does look very lush and healthy. I agree with Karin that I like contrasting hosta next to each other. Blue and green, stick in a yellow or variegated, etc. Around a tree in back I have golden tiara alternating with halcyon or something similar (not exactly sure). They filled in nicely and contrast well with each other. You already have the tiaras, and sometimes you can get lucky at a nursery and find a hosta with multiple eyes and just divide that up out of the pot, maybe get two or three starts from one.

I don't have any Krossa Regal, but it looks like they get quite tall. How tall is the tree you want to plant under? The tree you already did looks like a little guy, growing like a crabapple or something, and it seems like the Kross would be too tall.

If you are looking for a little hosta to stick in, last summer I got Gold Drop from Savory. They are in the Twin Cities, so I just saw it in person and really liked it. I was able to divide one into two, and they both came back so beautifully this spring. It was only five bucks, so very cheap, but it provides a nice pop of color, and it seems like a nice, full hosta, very short to go in front of other ones.

Thank you so much dear Angt29. I looked the Varietés up you mentioned and I like them a lot!! My garden needs more color..: so far it’s mostly dark green