Suggestions for something to grow on dry/rooty soil?

18 years ago

I know this question or one like it has probably been posted before.... but I have the most AWFUL large patch in one part of my shade.... stuff DOES NOT like to grow in it.... it is dry and very compacted with roots..... (maples) it also has wild cherries overhead whose pits fall on the ground (and stay there!!) they don't seem to decompose and make this dry rocky (pitty) soil. I just want SOMETHING there..... it is so yucky to look at.... just dirt and a few surface roots and cherry pits! Any suggestions? For something decorative (native or otherwise) that would thrive and spread? The shade itself is also pretty deep little to no sunlight....

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Comments (4)

Elaine_NJ6
18 years ago
I have a spot just like that, and it also gets a few hours of sun a day. I have managed to gradually get Christmas fern to thrive there. At first they looked pretty awful, and they need frequent watering their first year, but after a year or two they get big and look very nice. There's also hosta (which I wouldn't plant but which was there), and a small yellow-flowered sedum that volunteered and that spreads nicely. Lately, as the soil has improved, I've added tiarella and wild ginger, which are doing not spectacularly well but OK. I also have a native campanula, harebell, a small plant adapted to dry, rocky soil, that I'm thinking of putting there.
turbo_tpl
18 years ago
Couple of ideas that come to mind are mountain laurel (Kalmia) and New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus - if there is sunlight). Both tolerate pretty rotten soil...
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knottyceltic
18 years ago
This is my soil exactly. We live in a sugar maple woods, smattered with black cherry, beech and walnut, with soil that is sand and powdered clay so any water the soil gets, either gets stolen by the maples or drained quickly away to the gravel bed below. Still we have an abundance of things that grow here...

Jack-in-the-pulpit by the thousands
Blue Cohosh by the thousands
Dog tooth violets by the hundreds
Wild violets
Christmas Fern loves it in our dry ground as well
Crested Shield Fern
Hart's Tongue Fern
Male Fern doing very well
Nannyberry bush
Witch Hazel bush
Serviceberry bush
and despite the totally WRONG conditions we have a Highbush Cranberry (normally likes acidic and wet) that is thriving in our basic and dry conditions.

We have a TON of other stuff but it all tends to need watering a couple times a week.

In these dry conditions it seems that trial and error needs to be accepted as one of your methods as well as a lot of research into sun/soil conditions and plants that thrive in them.

It also seems to be easier to grow things from seed in these conditions so that the plant/shrub/tree is adapted to the poor soil right from the start. We have a Redbud that we bought that has struggled along but it has thrown 2 very healthy seedlings about 20 feet away from it that are thriving after sprouting from seed. Find out what works for people in these conditions and then put a "WANTED" list for seeds over at the seed exchange forums.

Have fun...

Barb
southern Ontario, CANADA zone 6a
karinl
18 years ago
Check out this thread on the same forum for zillions of ideas:

Here is a link that might be useful: Groundcovers