We’re very happy with Chateau Steelypips, and we especially enjoy our back yard:
Of course, it’s not without its problems, as you can see in that picture (and another that I’ll put below the fold). The yard is pleasantly private and shady, thanks to a row of maples along the right side, and an enormous oak tree in the back left corner (you can see the trunk at the left edge of that picture– the tree is probably 50-60 feet high, and almost perfectly round). The problem is, it’s damnably difficult to get grass to grow, as you can tell from the large bare patches of dirt.
So, here’s a question for anybody reading this who has a greener thumb than mine (which would be just about anyone):
What should I be growing in the back yard?
Grass obviously isn’t working very well, but I’m not that fond of dirt. Is there something I can do to improve the lawn, or some other plant that would fare better?
There are, of course, some constraints:
1) Whatever goes in there needs to be safe. A big part of the reason I’m asking about this is the imminent(-ish) arrival of FutureBaby– we’d like to have something out back other than mud for him or her to play on. Any ground-covering plant we put out there needs to be something that a child can run and play on (and probably eat in small quantities) without ill effects.
2) Whatever goes in there needs to be low maintenance. Anything requiring frequent watering, trimming, or feeding is going to suffer, because I’m both busy and lazy. Our yard maintenance is done by NT Lawn Care, namely the neighbors’ teenage sons, and I’d like to keep it that way.
3) Whatever goes in shouldn’t be too aggressive. Our next-door neighbors mow their lawn about four times a week, so while I don’t doubt I could carpet the back lawn with dandelions or clover, I don’t think that would make me popular in the neighborhood.
So, suggestions from the gardeners in the audience?
Here’s a picture of the area along the fence to the neighbors’ yard, under the big maple trees. You can also see Queen Emmy the Vigilant, making sure that there aren’t any invisible alien menaces from another dimension sneaking into the yard.
I think you should defer to John on this matter. He’s a philosopher, so he knows about these things. Or at least says he does.
Do not constrain yourself to consideration of plants.
Your garden seem to have a fair few trees growing around it which case a fair bit of shade.
Have you consider the use of gravel, with planted features either directly into the ground through the gravel or in decorative pots ? You could also use bark under the trees, which not only looks nice but also would be kind to first born’s knees.
I am not sure what the area of your garden is like near your house, but you could also consider some decking. Looks OK, and would give first born some place to crawl outside.
I’ve got similar problems and a bigger yard. For areas that are likely to be low traffic (the back corners and under shrubs, etc.) consider some low growing ground cover plants that are shade tolerant — Vinca (aka myrtle) — 2-3″ tall, pachysandra — 4-5″ tall, and lily of the valley — about 6″ tall come to mind. These will all tend to gradually spread, but can be kept under control with the lawn mower. They have the distinct advantage of creating areas that don’t need mowing at all, and will only need the dead leaves raked out in the fall. They’ll take a certain amount of foot traffic. Vinca has the advantage of being evergreen.
Also, don’t forget to check out your trees to see if there’s a strong enough horizontal branch (or will be one in a couple years) with enough swinging room to hang a real swing for FutureBaby. If that doesn’t look feasible, figure out where you will eventually want to put a playground set and/or a play house. You need to concede now that such areas will probably always have well worn areas with almost no grass once FutureBaby and siblings/friends get going. You can avoid some of the mud problem by using a bark mulch there.
vinca is great, but lily of the valley is poisonous…hosta likes shade and is generally very easy. But deer like it. How about some plants– bushes, understory– that would attract birds and butterflies? Elderberries? big stepping stones through a ground cover, or winding mulch paths would be nice. Avoid ivy– too aggressive. Or start a plant house with some kind of tall skinny thing that could form walls. It’s wonderful to have a hiding place.
You could try moss, there was an article in the NYT about it a week or so ago. Although I’m no expert, your lawn might be totally wrong for it, the article says it likes shade which seems to be your problem, maybe it would work.
Vinca (vincrystine, vinblastine), pachysandra (http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:6075485), and lily of the valley (cardiac glycosides and saponins) are all toxic by ingestion. Philodendron are toxic. Ferns don’t like being trodden. Beware anything with milky white sap. Deep shade is intensely difficult to carpet. Ivy would work, but only a monster plants ivy. Rushes are OK with damp and shady. Contain them with flamethrowers. Coarse mulching is the best idea.
You might survey what constitutes temperate forest groundcover. The deeply shaded understories I’ve seen are mostly dead leaves and conifer needles. And ivy.
We had a semi-shady herb garden growing in beneath a crab apple tree when I lived in Vermont. Chives tried to use the garden in their attempt to take over the universe, though. I don’t remember what else grew well there.
I’ve got a book called The Wild Lawn Handbook that talks about ways to replace grass with moss, among other things.
The woods in Maine have a lot of wildflowers that grow in the understory. Forget-me-nots were my favorite – and the only flower I knew well. (The stinging nettles, although edible when boiled, probably aren’t a good choice for FutureBaby.) Moss and ferns are common, too.
I’ll repeat the suggestion for hosta. IIRC, some daylilies are shade-tolerant – you might check that out.
I’ve forgotten where you are – some possible local resources are an Arboretum or local college / university with a biology/ forestry/ agriculture department.
This looks like a reasonable starting reference.
Phlox! I forgot about phlox – it stands up to a moderate bit of foot traffic – two of my neighbors have phlox covering the boulevard between their sidewalk and the street.
This probably sounds like heresy or worse: asphalt. Yes, nice black asphalt, laid out in a pleasing, curvy shape where the shade is the deepest. Perhaps red bricks as a border. And container plants here and there where shade-loving, white-sap nastyplants can be safely grown out of FutureBaby’s reach for a few years.
Check with Cornell Cooperative Extension. They have a Schenectady County office.
Hostas are wonderful plants. They require lots of water and water all year even when they are dormant (they die back in the winter). I have had success with clematis (they can twine around your fence), Tradescantia (spiderwort), Brunnera macrophylla (“jack frost”), violas are good – low growing and spread easily, Japanese anemone (A. hupehyensis japonica), juncus is another good ground cover. Whatever you plant, you have to amend the soil first to make it good and healthy so the plants will survive. Also consider installing an automatic watering system to make life a little easier.
Consider pruning the trees to give lower growing plants more light and promote healthy growth of the trees themselves. Where you have the bare ground, put down micro bark as a mulch instead of planting.
As for the grass part, consider some kind of landscaping with a smaller grassy area and the rest with pavers or stepping stones with plantings in between.
Whatever you choose to plant, make sure it is appropriate for your planting zone. There is nothing worse than spending a lot of money for plants that don’t grow (or thrive) where you live.
Fill in the deepest-shade regions with moss per the NYT article. For lightly-shaded areas, I’m very fond of ajuga reptans which has lots of colorful (green/bronze/purple) foliage, and bright blue flower spikes in the spring. Unlike pachysandra and vinca, most varieties are very low-growing and tolerant of foot traffic—i.e. it behaves more like a lawn than like garden. And it’s completely nontoxic.
It’s fast-spreading (by runners), and I’ve seen it out-compete grass in an *untended* lawn, but I think that an occasional attack with the edger would keep it out of a dense, intensively-maintained grass lawn.
On the slower-growing front, there are a couple of lovely New-England-native forest perennials—wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), partridgeberry (Michella reptans), and wild ginger (Asarum sp.). Pick up one of each, stick ’em under your trees, and see what thrives. All nontoxic IIRC, all low-growing, shade-loving, and all at least marginally tolerant of foot traffic.
1) If anyone suggests English ivy or honeysuckle, avoid them. These are pests.
2) You can sneak in some really nice early spring bulbs that will bloom before the trees leaf out — daffodils, Siberian squill, etc.
3) Lots of great suggestions above if you really want to plant there.
I dunno, though . . . if it were my yard, I’d put out a couple of really comfy chaises longues under the trees, add some chilled beverages of choice, and read some gardening books. Then I’d pave it, add more chairs, more drinks, and throw more summer parties. But that’s just because I’m jaded, and ten years of fighting with the deep shade in my yard has me thinking of patios. Better luck with yours!
Thing is, we *have* a patio, at the other end of the yard. And it’s rarely so warm here that we want to be sitting in all deep shade, all the time . . . (Also, that end is close to the neighbors and therefore not as quiet.)
NYT article on moss, which does look promising. (Especially the low water requirements–anything that requires frequent watering is a no-go.)
Wild ginger is a good ground cover for shady lawns, at least as my mom assures me.
Ignore anyone who suggests killing the trees by paving under them, or planting an invasive exotic like English Ivy.
Step 1: know your “zone” and consult that shade garden site for reasonable species so you have a sense of the lingo. An ecologist would probably start by looking at what grows in a northern latitude beech-maple or oak climax forest (ferns and moss).
Step 2: use your extension agent, who might also have a staff of volunteer Master Gardeners that will provide you with truly expert assistance. Among other things, they can tell you how to measure the amount of light you get. That might not be “deep shade” since you have some grass growing in spots under the tree. It could be the tree is taking a lot of moisture and nutrients away from the grass. They might also be able to direct you to a local garden center with expertise on “natural” gardening with native species.
Step 3: talk to your neighbor. Would a different variety of grass work?
Different option: pruning the trees to open up the canopy.
Third vote for moss. It’s soft, grows easily in the shade, and is in my view a lot more beautiful and interesting than a lawn. Can plant some shade-loving non-toxic flowers in it, giving a colorful accent to the deep green. A weathered statue and white lilies might be a bit too mournful, but if FutureBaby grows up to be a Goth he/she’ll thank you for it. ^_^
As O’Hara says, I am a philosopher, therefore right. Or something. I would look around the less developed areas of your region, and look for trees that have things growing underneath them that are safe and pleasant to look at. Grab them if the law permits, and transplant them or sow seed from them. Water once, and then foregeddaboudit.
Even that is too much for the Darwinian gardener, but it’s at least only a one-off imposition on the beer-drinking time a man is assigned.
OK, I’m a monster.
I would plant ivy. Lots of it.
After it has spread it takes little to no maintenance. lay in lines of bricks where you want it to stop and enforce this barrier with a weed whacker twice a year. While you do it is easy to clear an encroachment on the winding stone paths you lay in and cut any runners at ground level that are climbing the trees. Assuming this isn’t desired behavior. Every few years, in the fall, you mow all the ivy down to a couple on inches, it renews itself the next growing season.
In the time you save not doing yard work you go fishing, read those book you have never had time for or polish your blog. Or you could do penance for planting ivy by flogging yourself with birch branches while standing in a freezing stream. Whatever turns you on.
Sweet woodruff. It’s an actual herb so it’s safe to eat and grows well in shade and will work as ground cover. As a bonus, it smell nice when you walk on it. Low growing or miniature thymes will work too though they’re less fond of shade.
MKK
We have much the same tree situation.
Moss covers about a quarter of our front lawn and we have pachysandra claiming large chunks of our back lawn.
The problem with many alternate ground covers is that they’re not suitable for running around. Moss just rips into chunks and sprawls you on your butt as you slip on it. Pachysandra smells bad and is unpleasantly high.
I’ve considered trying to put in sedge or another shade-tolerant grass, e.g.,
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/sustainable/handbooks/lawns/5.html
http://www.savegreen.biz/faqs.html
but haven’t actually gotten around to making the effort yet.
Rhododendron can grow in the shade, and if the area gets even some sunlight, then it should grow well and give some nice flowers. And I don’t know if they can grow up north (I’m in central Georgia and have to deal with grass not taking to red clay), but azaleas also grow well in the shade. There are even species of azaleas (Encore) that can bloom up to three times a year! Plant a nice corner garden of some of these bushes, then surround it with some mulch and stones to delineate it and cut back on weeds. These things need to get planted in the spring though, so you need to hurry up and decide.
I also agree with CC and John that should look in local forests to see what comes out naturally as undergrowth.
ALSO, don’t forget to leave some space for Futurebaby’s future playhouse and playground (swings and slides). That area is nice because the shade lowers the sunburn risk for the child.
Nothing but grass has evolved to survive being trampled and eaten by herbivores. Unfortunately this trait keeps it low and sun loving. With a kid in the immediate future, I would learn to embrace the dirt. Kids love dirt, it’s parents who love grass. For either social or sex linked genetic traits boys enjoy dirt more than girls (gross generality based on having one of each sex), but girls like the mud.
Dirt is practically indestructible, can be formed into an entertaining array of new profiles, and comes in the house as a memento of the recent fun. Dirt has all the microbes necessary to develop the young immune system. Dirt is the very definition of low maintenance.
Chad,
Based on your photos, the maples you have appear to be Norway Maples. This species is allelopathic, so it will be hard to grow much of anything under them, even if you do allow more light in.
Lab Lemming, I think you may be right, based on a quick inspection and Wikipedia. That explains a lot . . .