No matter what you amend the soil in the planting holes with, the tree's roots are going to invade and choke out the new smaller plant. You dig the hole, fill it with perfect soil, put in your plant, water, and the tree's roots are going to invade. The better you amend the soil, the faster the tree's roots are going to invade. It is hard to get very many plants to grow in these conditions. For light, an good arborist can thin out some of the upper branches to get more light down to the ground. If you go this route, be careful who you hire. Some tree services are experts at how to cut down trees and keep them from hitting homes and power lines, but they can butcher a tree that you want pruned carefully. The problem with dry soil at the base of the trees is a much harder problem to solve. The roots from the large trees will soak up every drop of water that hits the ground so that under-story plantings struggle to survive. I've seen two solutions that work well. You can try to simulate a natural woodland floor using mosses and ferns, which can be really pretty once they are established. I saw an episode of "Gardening by The Yard" where a person had a large tree next to the street where nothing would grow due to dry conditions caused by the tree. The brought in several really pretty pots and placed them around the base of the tree and filled them with shade loving plants. The plants in pots did not have to compete with the tree for water. They had a variety of pot and plant heights that made a really beautiful planting around the base of the tree. Natural looking containers like whiskey barrel halves or hypertufa pots made to look like large hollow stones could both look good under trees. The mix of trees, poplar vs maple, will make a big difference in what you can get to grow under them. The poplar should not create as big a problem since they are taller with fewer low level limbs, and have deep root systems. The sugar maples will cause more problems since they have a shallow dense root system that will suck all water from the surface soil. They have lots more branches at lower levels to shade out other plants. The roots of sugar maple are somewhat alleopathic. They are not nearly as bad as black walnut at killing competing plants, but their roots do secret a sap that discourages other plants from growing. If you have some areas that get good sunlight for at least half a day, blueberry plants might work. Blueberries have very shallow root systems, with most of their roots in the top 9 inches of soil. Their roots rarely go further down than 16 inches ever. Since blueberries like really acid soil with a pH of about 5, the other tree's roots won't be as aggressive into these plantings. You could dig a hole 1 foot deep and 2 feet wide, line it with landscape fabric, fill it with peat moss and pine mulch, scatter soil sulfur to acidify the soil, and plant your blueberries. They would need to be irrigated regularly, so a drip system would be needed. Good luck, Greg

Hi goodkamra. You sound just like me- I want shady green lush looking plants in full hot sun and I don't want to water them because my bill is too high. And I would like them to bloom year-round. Haha!!! We're not hard to please, right? My mom says I should get plastic plants. But seriously, I have found a few plants that you might like, depending on the size of your beds. Are your beds going to be about six to eight feet deep? That would give you a twelve by sixteen foot lawn in the middle, right? I use duranta repens for a woodland look. They require water, though, they are not xeric plants. I especially like the green and white variegated ones. They grow about eight to ten feet tall, and they cascade in a graceful way. I also like Springtime viburnums because of their dark green foliage. Santa Barbara daisies give a woodlandish look. Hummingbird Sage has large leaves and smells great. You can also use tree stumps to give a wooded feel. I also grow the little purple violets, but they are invasive and burn up in full sun. They do well under the durantas. Here are some photos of my "woodlandish" area. The white flowering shrubs are Bridal Wreath Spireas, and to the far right you can see the variegated duranta up against the fence. These shrubs are underplanted with Santa Barbara daisies, violets, and hummingbird sage. These two shots show the duranta (yellow berries) with the viburnum in front, white brugmansia, and bridal wreath spirea. I use wooden railroad ties, old dead branches, and tree stumps to give more of a woodland look. If you can get dead Birch tree branches, they are the best. The bigger you can make the beds, the more options for nice shrubs. You can see how the violets grow in the shade under the shrubs. Other options for a green feel include nandina and sword ferns. Good luck with your project! Renee

mayland, a lot of people (including myself, till i really got into it) don't realize that gardening is a year-round endeavor, and you can keep planted with seasonal veggies with minimal effort on your part. grocery stores have spoiled me rotten to a degree (year-round everything), but i find it a fun challenge to adapt to a seasonal menu at home - my DW and I love to cook, although admittedly, i do 75% or more of all the cooking in the house. regarding my stackstone beds...i try to keep them planted year-round with (at minimum) salad greens, during warm months (late spring/summer/fall/early winter) they keep us outfitted with tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, herbs, peppers, etc. the beds are only ~12 ft each (~3.5' x 3.5') personally, i don't like needing to buy from the store, and it always taste better fresh-picked. typical exchange at home for us: "hey honey, you want salad for dinner tonight?" "sure!" "ok, i'm headed outside to cut some!" "grab a tomato and cucumber while you're at it!" i tell ya, it is SUCH an immense pleasure to go into the fridge, realize, "dang, i don't have any X or Y!" and not have to nix your dinner plans entirely or drive to the store in order to salvage them. it's also nice to get those occasional perks, like, for example, the brown turkey figs on the side yard, which go so well with balsamic vinegar and either greek yogurt or goat cheese (btw - fig is another one you could potentially grow in that spot...) we're always improving and improvising to find new ways to grow, and i think this year; i think we're going to look into adding something like this into the mix this winter to continue growing things which are cold-intolerant but don't require pollination. ultimately, the options are limitless. we picked up our fig in feb/march and planted - it had one fig on it from the store (it ripened a few weeks back), and it literally leaped already, doubled in size, and has at least 40 figs on it already :) at this point, i've got the edible landscape bug, whereas previously, i was all about xeriscaping. i can't help myself. the hard part is knowing all your options, there's just too much information out there and not enough time!!!

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll probably take you up on most of them, with the possible exception of Lamium -- I'm fighting it off in a couple of other areas, so I'm kind of sorry I ever planted it. The other thing I may do is to install drip irrigation in this bed. It's a border strip at the back of my yard, and is about 25 feet wide x 110 feet long. I have an abundant supply of T-tape irrigation tape, as well as all of the fittings, and this would help a lot with the drought situation, which can be an issue since the soil is a sandy loam. I think that some of the Nepeta species might work as well. As I said, the area does get some dappled sunlight throughout the year. In the next few weeks as time permits, I'm "going in" and doing some major thinning and pruning on most of the trees (except the oaks, which I have to do in the winter to avoid oak wilt) and shrubs. I hope to rework the perennial plantings in late summer, so that it's established and looks good next year. Does anyone know if any of the gentian species will tolerate these conditions? I used to have bottle and fringed gentian in the area, and it seems that they did well in similar conditions in similar native soils.