You can find some more information by searching previous posts about "what grows under a maple tree"; Groundcover and Shade forums--you might find someone who's had direct experience with specific groundcovers under maples. I doubt the grass thing will work. The creeping forms of liriope might work, though I haven't tried it. I was able to grow Vinca minor, but with spotty coverage. If you lower your expectations about a "clean" look, you may be more successful, as the problem with growing under maples is that you can't ensure uniform conditions that address soil, water, root competition, so you'll have pockets of success and failure, compared to photos you see of those great southern gardens with the liriope under oaks. The wild violets will pop up everywhere (not necessarily a bad thing)But maybe the creeping liriope will creep successfully. It is very invasive and may spread where you don't want it, but where it's happier.

If the area is mostly shade and moist or frequently irrigated, I'd consider wild ginger, Asarum species. There are many different types, several native to North America. Most are evergreen, often with patterned leaves, and produce odd-looking maroon or purplish flowers. Pretty much no maintenance plants :-) If the area is dryer, Vinca minor or Ajuga reptans could work.

To add to Yardvaark‘s suggested photo request, the warping and shrinkage in panorama photos make them more difficult for me to understand, so I prefer seeing a series of slightly overlapping photos not joined into a single panorama. How many acres are we talking here? Lot sizes vary quite a bit based on zoning, so you could have anything from 1/2 acre to 10 acres. As Christopher said, there is a middle ground between a set of trees manicured with ongoing herbicide and acres of lawn. We mow a chunk of our property as lawn, have several large shrub and tree borders 15’-20’ deep, and maintain other areas as rough field which have some trees, and keep other areas as woodlands . The field areas get mowed after the ground nesting birds have hatched and then about now after the grasses have seeded and are fading. We do use a bit of herbicide in the field on persistent woody invasives like buckthorn and bittersweet, as well as on poison ivy, but in general, just seasonal mowing takes care of woodies by not allowing them to become established. As long as you aren’t trying to maintain the look of a manicured lawn, mowing around trees isn’t an issue at all. The issue with removing all grass across a large area is that nature abhors a vacuum, and even the densest mulch will slow but not stop plants growing, not only woody plants such as native oaks and hickories, but also invasives and various herbaceous plants. You will be spending quite a bit of time for the first 10-15 years while the trees size up and the area still has a good amount of sun spraying herbicide, not a choice I would make. Also, if there is any slope at all, having bare ground covered with pine needles can leave you with massive erosion problems. You can start by planting a thick band of trees with an understory of large shrubs, well mulched, perhaps 15 feet deep and see how the maintenance works for that before committing to removing more lawn. The reason most folks have lawn rather than other plantings in the eastern half of the US is because it is the easiest to maintain.

I got an organic herbicide last year (before the price skyrocketed) under the brand name Biosafe weed control. It contains Ammonium Nonanoate, I notice Ortho is now selling this under the name Ground Clear OMRI and it does work on poison ivy. It only kills the portion of the plant above ground that has been sprayed. Killing all the foliage a few times will kill it off over time. It seems to work best when the plant is recieving the most sun it gets during the day. Just the other day I gloved up, put on long sleeves, and manually pulled out a lot of poison ivy vines (I am very allergic). I dont spend more than 20-30 minutes manually pulling before I wash up with dish soap and cold water. I have successfully used cut stem roundup concentrate applied with a foam brush on large poison ivy vines as well, cutting a segment out first with long handle loppers and using the loppers to handle the vine. I get kind of paranoid about spraying triclopyr around trees.