Hmmm, couldn't post my photo so I put it up on the hosta forum instead. Here's a link. Thanks

Here is a link that might be useful:

I have a shady garden/swing area as well. I put down some sandstone, just under my swing and surrounded it with hedges and lattice with ivy on it. It creates a sort of private room, which feels cozy. Inside my room, I have my favorite statues and garden art to look at, a hummingbird feeder and a birdbath within view. I don't have to improve the soil because two large oaks provide lots a leaves that I let improve the soil naturally in the fall. I hang out there a lot when I want to be alone with nature. Good luck. Your's sounds like it's coming along nicely.

8 years ago I started a shade garden around the fresh stump of a spruce tree that had been squeezed between two Norway maples. The garden was really small to start. Some transplanted hostas, a Christmas and a royal fern, a variagated solomon seal, and one bleeding heart. I plopped a big pot of begonias on top of the stump and was so pleased with the lush feel, I haven't stopped expanding yet.

Right now, the bed is about 50 feet long and 25 feet deep, and will be extended about another 30 feet to accommodate all the thinning and dividing I need to do. The bed is on a slope, so there is no seating, but I have a bench at the end of my yard that lets me look through my shady oasis into a sunny perennial bed and arbor that borders my veggie garden. I love sitting there. It almost makes me feel like I have my own botanical garden.

I didn't do any extensive prep to make the bed. The ground was covered with scraggly grass and weeds, so in the fall I just raked all the leaves into the area I wanted to plant and drove the lawn mower over and over it. Then I spread newspaper and about 5-6 inches of mulch over the paper. I let this sit until the next fall and planted. I got cheap end-of-season plants at the nurseries, divisions from friends, and transplants from my own yard. Small plants worked the best because of all the tree roots (and the size of my wallet). Over the years I have slowly kept adding new plants too. Most do well, but I have had some flops as well. The soil is dry, moisture stolen by the greedy trees. This seems to be the most limiting factor as to what will grow and what won't.

Overall shrubs have been a flop. I tried azaleas, mountain laurel, clethra, and just recently a variagated 5-leaf aralia. The aralia seems to be doing well, but it only went in this April. Everything else had to be relocated to prevent imminent death. I have ivy growing over a monumentally ugly (and huge!) cinder block retaining wall at the back of the shade bed. It thrives frighteningly well and requires hacking back at least once a year, but it has almost completely covered the wall in 4 years. Hurray!

I have had lousy luck with astilbes, heucheras, foxglove, and tiarella as well. If the blurb on a plant makes reference to it's moisture loving nature just forget planting it anywhere near a maple, unless it's in a pot.

Successes include lamiums (the chartreuse ones are very striking), epimediums, hostas-hostas-hostas (love 'em), hakoni grass, archangel, ferns (Japanese painted and the original Christmas and royal), the solomon seal, persicaria, corydalis lutea, Japonese anemone, primrose, lady's mantle, bleeding heart, pulmonaria, brunnera daffodils, and daylilies (in the sunnier areas). I've had great luck with the corydalis, anemone, pulmonaria, and ladies mantle seeding themselves, and of course the hostas have provided many divisions. My shady paradise just keeps getting bigger and bigger and for free! And don't forget shade-loving annuals in pots. They add needed color.

Good luck with your plans. It's sure to be a favorite retreat during the hot summer days.

I too, have a garden under a maple. I ditto BerkshirePhyl, if it mentions moisture, don't plant it. Hosta, epimedium, solomon seal and hardy geraniums (karmina, biokova and ingerwson's variety) all have done quite well. Add the Dryopteris ferns,(the male fern and autumn fern), to Phyl's fern list. If you are looking for a shrub, oakleaf hydrangea has worked well for me.

I read on another thread somewhere that if you raise garden beds too close to the tree itself or directly over roots already exposed you can cause rotting or insect damage or some such to the tree roots, eventually causing the tree to become diseased and die. Depending on your personal desire/need for privacy it might be nice to erect some sort of "walls" around your outdoor sitting room. Perhaps consider some sort of lighting around the area, clear strings of lights in the tree to make it more enticing at night, maybe some kind of rustic candle chandelier or the like. Remember to give yourself somewhere to set your lemonade and gardening catalog and take a pillow or two. Who says our garden can't be part of our living space just like a family room or library?

Good advice so far. Dry shade (and anything under the canopy/within the root zone of a large maple certainly qualifies) is a tough call, but there are many plants that will succeed and you've received some excellent suggestions. For added color, consider container plantings of annuals or other more moisture loving shade perennials - if the situation doesn't suit, change the conditions!

Also good advice about raising the soil level around established trees. Even a few inches of additional soil can smother feeder roots near the surface of the exsiting soil and eventually kill the tree. And I'd reconsider a tree fern - they are not reliably hardy outside of zone 9. Lots of other great fern choices available, though.

I haven't seen this technique too much on the Forum but it's worked for me several times so I'll throw it on the table...Here's how I handle rhoddies/azaleas, etc. under mature trees (including maples):

I use a modified 'Lasagna' technique. After I explain how I do it, I'll explain why it works. First, I unpot or unburlap the root ball and loose the roots quite a bit. Then, I just plop down the shrub where I want it...smack right on top of the soil. Under a mature tree, it wouldn't be wise to dig a large hole and disturb the tree's roots even it were possible to dig. OK. now that my shrub is sitting there, I water the root ball very well with a slow drip to make sure the water has penetrated the entire root ball. Then, I start my 'Lasagna'...

Have a large quantity of leaf mold, compost, and manure on hand in separate piles. Then, start with the leaf mold and pile it around the shrub's roots in a circle to about 4" thick going out about 5-6' from the rootball. Water this first layer well. Next, do the same thing with the compost...put the compost about 4" thick on top of the leaf mold and water again. Next, make another layer of 4" with the manure and water yet again. Now, start the process over repeating the layers watering between each layer. Keep layering until you've built the 'Lasagna' up to the proper height (top of root ball). Taper the 'Lasagna' out around the edges so it looks like a volcano thingy with your shrub in the middle. You'll want to go out about 5-6' for a, say, 2-3' rhoddie/azalea. You'll need to place something around the 'Lasagna' to keep it in place and not wash away...I just use rocks since that's what our soil "grows" best. Finally, put a thin (1-2") layer of either compost or leaf mold directly over the top of the root ball but not directly up to the trunk..just enough to cover.

Here's how it works...the 'Lasagna' will decompose and loosen the soil underneath allowing the shrub's roots to penetrate into the virgin soil winding its way through the tree's root system. The 'Lasagna' provides the shrub with a tremendously good establishment soil that will hold moisture well. If you'd planted directly into the soil, the tree would have soaked up all the water you tried to give the shrub.

As your 'Lasagna' decomposes it will shrink in height, you'll need to keep topping it off several times over the first couple seasons so the root ball stays covered at all times. Keep the 'Lasagna' damp (not soggy). Nothing special is required for winter protection. By the second or third season, your shrub will have put roots down in the virgin soil. By the fifth season, your shrub will have settled itself into its environment and you'll hardly notice the original 'Lasagna' hill anymore. The shrub will have had a chance to adapt to its environment gradually without having been stressed at all.

Going forward, my experience has been that shrubs planted using this technique are so well adapted they do not need supplemental watering after the second season. It is extremely important, however, during those first two seasons to keep things damp all the way to the virgin soil. Over the past twenty years, I've used this method probably a dozen times, maybe more. I was doing it before their was a word for it...'Lasagna'. If you ever have an opportunity to visit a nursery grower of shrubs, trees, etc. they often use a similar method making it easy to dig the plants for BB'ing when needed.

Anyway, just thought somebody might want to give it a try. You can also do this with things like large hostas that would require a larger hole than possible to dig 'cause of tree roots. Just keep the 'Lasagna' well watered the first two seasons.