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jq19_gw

shaded area in need of plants

jq19
16 years ago

I am in desperate need of help! For the past 3 years I have been battling a shaded area. I have a bird pen (i raise exotic outdoor birds) that is directly under a large maple tree. There are a few sunny blotches for a few hours a day, but otherwise its mostly shady. The pen is 25 by 12 feet. The soil is pretty hard. This spring I added some mulch to add some more organic material. Over the past few years I have been adding different types of plants that should have done well in shade, but I mostly had no success. Some things I have planted were ferns, boxwood, hydrangea, and some more common shade shrubs. Most of the time I had to dig them up because they looked so unhealthy (basically no leaves). The only thing that seems to be doing ok is a large rhodendron bush I planted a few months ago. It recently flowered and now itÂs putting out new leaves. The only problem is that when the sun hits the plant the leaves start to wilt. Any way i donÂt want to make this too long so ill get to the point. I was hoping some of you experts out there could give me some suggestions, like what plant species to plant, and what i could do to the soil to improve it. I would really like to get a hydrangea bush established in the pen, but I tried once with no success. I also planted some ivy in the pen but they donÂt seem to be doing so well( I would really like to keep the ivy if possible)

P.s. Today I watered all the plants with a blood meal-water mix hoping that would improve their growth somehow

Thanks for any help

Jon

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