I have an area on the side of my house that is a dead zone. There's an unknown tree on my property and my neighbor has large pine trees along their fence line. Not thick christmas tree pines but tall pines.

Grass is impossible to grow and I have tried other numerous plants over the years with no success. For the past 5 or 6 years we have mulched the whole slope (did I mention that it's on a hill?) but there's no money for that this year.

I own property in NE Wisconsin that is 80% tall pines. There are ferns all over the place underneath them. I was hoping I could dig some up and bring them back to the Chicago area and plant them in this problem area.

Should I wait until right before the drive home to dig them up or is the day before ok? I was going to take a huge plastic garbage bag and just throw in as many as I could. I'm not really sure how delicate they are?

any advice is appreciated!

I really can't take it anymore. If I can't find a solution that doesn't require 100.00 dollars in mulch every year, I'm going to cut the tree down!