need tips for growing in dry hillside woods

I'M ABOUT TO gIVE UP! I feel like I've tried every plant listed for southern shade gardens but most stay around 2 yrs at most. Only cast iron plants make it. I water once a wk in season, have monsoons all winter. My woods are mostly oak, pine, american beech, parsley hawthorn, red maple and gum ball trees with acidic sandy soil . Oh and all kinds of invasive vines. I'VE CLEARED PATHS anD UNDERGROWTH about 4 ft each side of paths. This is not moist woodsy soil! Any suggestions on what will thrive here? Would it help to sink pots with or without bottoms. What about covering the beds with landscape cloth topped with soil and plants. I TRIED LAYERING IN NEWSPAPER TO GIVE HOSTAS SOME HEADSTART FROM TREEROOTS? DID'T WORK? I'm surrounded with these woods all around my house and so dream of a woodland garden. Oh! And forget azaleas a real no go. Grape holly and banana shrub did work. Lost a fortune to hydrangeas,hosta and ferns. What can I do?

Ginger, Here are some suggestions for using native plants for dry shade. Using natives, you will need a large group of plants to get a better effect. These are all perennials so you should get a larger and larger clump each year.

Turks Cap (Malvaviscus)
Golden Groundsel (Pakera obovata)
Brazos Penstemon (Penstemon tenuis)
Blue Curls (Phacelia congesta)
Scarlet Sage (Salvia coccinea)
Cedar Sage (Salvia romeriana)
Shrubby boneset (Ageratina havanensis)
Blue Mistflower (Conoclinum coelestinum)
Eves Necklace (Styphnolobium affine)
Woodland Phlox (Phlox divaricata)

Plant understory trees like dogwood and redbud for a great spring show. Dont forget carolina jessamine.


This message was edited Mar 4, 2013 3:36 AM

Here are some non-native plants that tolerate dry shade. You are correct that dry shade is the hardest kind of environment to plant in. Woods mean trees and trees use all the moisture so plants have to be chosen specifically for DRY shade.

Hellebores (Lenten Rose) tree roots dont bother these plants.
Toad lilies
Solomon's Seal There are tons of varieties of this.
False Solomon's Seal (Smilacina racemosa)
Primulas
Pulmonaria
Sedum ternatum (Woodland Stonecrop)
Tiarella pink skyrocket
Heucherella
vinca minor, green, varigated or gold

This message was edited Mar 4, 2013 3:40 AM

Any way you can add some compost to help retain some moisture? Epimediums do wonderful in dry shade but they need about a year of watering to get them established.

Thanks for the plant list.I forgot about the epimediums I planted 4 yrs ago-A huge tree fell down blocking my being able to get up there to see if still there, ( knee trouble and arthritis make my walking unstable). A tree guy is slated to come "When everything dries out" he says and I'm wondering does he mean this summer? LOL!

Steady cam, have you grown these plants in Houston? Thats even hotter and maybe more humid than here. The only thing I haven't tried in the 2nd list is the sedum- all else lasted about 2 yrs. The native list is very interesting. I actually have turks cap in a sunny bed I'm in the midst of converting back to lawn so I'll try that. Penstenmon tenuis grows wild all over the sunny wet spots , actually even in my gravel driveway. I didn't know it could grow in shade. I just dug up a bucket full out of my lawn and walkways today so I'll try that for sure tommorow. I have 2 dogwoods and lost 2 redbuds this past year. Sometimes I feel like when I became ill my plants did also in sympathy. Caroline jassamine is one of those weedy vines that escapes my woods trying to strangle my roses and trip me up walking. Like the sweet smelling honeysuckle I let be that I spent 8 hrs getting out of 1 bed yesterday! The rest of the natives are new to me at least as liking dry woods. I'll givem a try. Thanks again.

My yard is also a woodland jungle. I've spent 15yrs trying to tame it.
I think the key is identifying the worst thugs and controlling them.
In my case, the worst offender was asian honeysuckle (shrub honeysuckle) which was choking the life out of my woodland.
And then all the choking vines, incl japanese honeysuckle (the vining version), euonymus vine, virginia creeper, vinca, ivy, and some awful thing I call potato vine, but I'm not sure of it's real name.
I also had tons of 'weed trees' which had to be thinned to let a little light into the woods.

Once you control the constant threat of encroaching invasives,
your plants will have a fighting chance.
Some epimediums are quite drought tolerant, but take several years to get established.
You need to keep mother nature at bay while they're trying to get established.

Hellebores are incredibly tolerant of shade, so I think they also are worth consideration.

A little scattered, but I hope the info helps.

I just got a copy of a very interesting book "Planting the Dry Shade Garden" by Graham Rice. He gardens north of you, but maybe it would help. Anyway it's a nice read when you are laid up on the couch! I am trying some of his recommended plants this year. He says exactly which ferns, Epimediums etc work best. He even recommends a particular orange daylilly. It does not seem to be for sale, so I am going to (of course) trade for it on DG.
Good luck!