Here's a subject that gets a lot less coverage regarding shade gardening: the trees that create the shade. When I bought my house I inherited a Kwanzan cherry near the entry and I immediately tried to garden under it. For several years I kept attributing my miserable failure to the shade being too dense. This past spring I tried an experiment in which I again placed the same kind of plants that had died under the tree--but in pots. All thrived! So I had been struggling against the wrong problem. I didn't need ultra-shade tolerant plants...I needed plants that were shade tolerant and also tolerant of extreme root competition. All my spring ephemerals grew well (bluebells, bloodroot, etc.), but when they disappeared, even the ferns couldn't make it.

So my two questions: what are the best and worst trees for growing under? Maples and beeches would certainly be among the worst. I've heard apples are deep-rooted and quite easy to grow plants under (I guess that's why the cherry, which I thought would be similar, fooled me).

And what do you all grow in such a challenging place, if anything? Actually, there is one plant that has moved in and thrives: a stemmed white violet that I think is V. canadensis, but I'm not sure. The foliage stays nice until frost. I like it, but by itself it doesn't make much of a statement. Liriope would grow, but I don't want it smothering my wildflowers. What do you think?

Of course, I may already have the solution, which is placing pots there after the wildflowers go dormant. Just wondering what other people do.

Donna