Big trees make beautiful yards and miserable beds. Their roots take the water, their canopy takes the light, and the plants underneath get whatever is left. The answer isn’t more irrigation. It’s choosing plants that evolved in exactly those conditions.
Our seven
Christmas fern and autumn fern keep their fronds through winter and shrug off dry spells once they’re rooted. Hellebores flower in February when nothing else does and are ignored by deer. Wild ginger makes a low, glossy carpet. Carex, the woodland sedges, give you a grassy texture without the mowing. Oakleaf hydrangea is a native shrub with big white flower heads in June and red leaves in fall. And foamflower spreads gently and blooms in spring.
How to plant them so they last
Dig wide rather than deep; tree roots sit in the top foot of soil and you want to tuck plants between them, not chop through them. Mix a little compost into the backfill, water in well and lay two inches of shredded leaf or pine bark mulch.
Water weekly through the first summer. That first year is the one that counts: after that, most of these plants only need help in a real drought.
One thing to skip
Don’t pile new soil over tree roots to make a raised bed. Even six inches can suffocate the feeder roots of an older oak, and you won’t see the damage for two or three years.