I put about 8 bags of topsoil down there, 5 inches deep at the most, directly on the existing soil/roots. I had dug a few areas kind of testing out the soil to seed if I wanted to plant directly in the existing soil but decided to to raise it up a bit. For me, ferns, pulmonarias and hellebores do quite well there plus Tiarella and spring ephemerals like bleeding heart and Virginia blue bell. Astilbes dry out way too much. The surrounding trees are all doing fine. I have mostly ash trees there. I think if you do not cover a significant area beneath the tree or do not sever the roots in a large circle around the tree, the tree will adapt. Normally that tree would hAve years of leaf litter accumulating above the roots--it looks as though you remove the leaves. I would not plan on putting down 5 inches of soil across the entire drip area of the tree though. I think either a curved section of raised bed in front of that edger you have or a couple of individual beds would work fine there and give you spaces to add a bit of variety to your back yard.

hi, i too live in pinellas county. we have a big florida oak in the front and it took me a while to figure out things to plant. i have had luck with pentas, which come in many colors and attract butterflies. i also like calladiums-- the ones that have hot pink edged in green get silvery water droplets that make them really glisten. ferns are an easy choice and always look lush. we have a croton that's done very well in shade; it has the wide, flat leaves and looks autumnal in colors. i am still trying to figure out where to plant an oakleaf hydrangea, which is a native and can get sizeable. it needs dappled shade. it gets lovely flowers in about may-june, and i'd recommend looking into it. might afford you some more privacy, and while the autumn foliage isn't exactly like up north, it does change, and you might like that [but don't expect sugar maple red!] good luck, and enjoy getting to know the plants; what i've learned is that once you break out of the four-season mentality, there's an embarrassment of riches! --shelbey

After some research, I came to the same conclusion. There's not much light there, so most flowering plants are not going to flower. I was thinking of getting something tall enough to be visible to fill in that space. I suppose once can add a statue or something, but that looks kinda of tacky. I wonder how big the osterich fern will grow if I can keep that area well stocked with compost. I thought of Polygonatum variegatum, too, but I recall it doesn't like alkaline soil (7.5) and is slow growing. Paul

Good idea except the hardy clumping ones tend to be comparatively short-growing, the tall ones running in habit. Perhaps GA location is mild enough for hardiest tropical clumping species but I suspect there would be problems with periodic freezing back. Or even freezing out entirely. Anything chosen will need time to develop, it's not going to be a matter of the house next door disappearing anytime soon - if a tall hedge right in front of the fence is relied upon solely to screen the entire space. And with a comparatively refined and attractive type like holly we might actually be talking about 20 or more years before the currently desired level of screening is achieved. Unless huge specimens are located somewhere, trucked to the site and planted by a contractor. Yet with a more explosively growing, quickly quite tall species there is the problem of them appearing rank, becoming too much. It having been used by the ancient Greeks Laurus is a literally classic plant for all kinds of garden and landscape uses but does this Mediterranean climate tree grow in Atlanta? Evergreen Prunus species often reseed to a nuisance degree wherever they like the climate well enough to produce a feature like a tall hedge.