Understory for (Sitka?) spruce

Hi again. Still new. :~)

I can't yet do much in-ground planting because I'm still working out hardscape and wheelchair access, but I do have two and a half very tall spruce in the far back, with blackberries, of course, under one and nothing that I can see growing under the other. Can anybody recommend something besides chairs that I might plant there? I'm particularly interested in establishing PNW natives.

Turtle

Oh, the "half" tree is because there are two trunks growing out of the same spot. I figure probably even they don't know if they are one tree or two.

P.s. I've been reading for weeks/months, On DG and elsewhere,and still can't get a clear idea of what grows under PNW spruce. This is why I finally pitch my question to you-all.

T.

Hi 13T-
I have a big Pine tree, limbed up so I can sorta walk under it. Dry shade, slope, clay and builders rubble. I dug out the ivy choking it. I spent the winter reading about what to plant that would ultimately be easy and drought tolerant. I wanted mostly low plants, purple and yellow theme, with some orange accents. Mostly spring blooming with some interest other times. I spread 6-8 inches of purchased "soil" on top of the pine roots, and planted in it. Here is what I finally came up with:
Dryopteris felix-mas 'Barnsii' Barnes narrow male fern (then I found Tokyo Wood Fern on sale at Lowes so I am trying it instead).
Tellima grandiflora 'Forest Frost' Fringecups
Iris foetidissima var lutea yellow flowers, big orange-red seed pods
Iris cristata 'Abbey's Violet' a tiny thing!
Epimedium pinnatum var colchicum
Hemerocallus fulva 'Flore pleno' (not available at nurseries, but I found a DGer to trade me for it). Thuggish in sun but dry shade tames it, supposedly.
Heuchera villosa 'Autumn Bride'
Geranium x 'Samobor'
Polypodium scouleri the Leathery polypoidy fern, a PNW native, miniature fern, very drought tolerant for me here.
Hellebore Winter Jewels series 'Golden Sunrise' it's been blooming since January!
Geranium phaeum 'Lily Lovell'
Alstroemeria 'The Third Harmonic'.
then it seemed sort of bare so I added on the spur of the moment, Hosta "Great Expectations, and two yellow Digitalis species from dry places in Europe, as an experiment.

Some of these suggestions were from books, others from mail order websites from PNW growers. So many seem seem odd for dry shade, like the Alstroemeria, but a reputable mail-order grower in California says this variety does well in dry shade. So far everything is doing fine, but I have been watering until it gets established. I plan to put up a little DG photo essay once it fills in. If you need any more info about any of these plants, or where I got plants from, just ask. For once I was quite organized and it's in my file.
I was interested in natives, but not exclusive. The polypoidy fern is native, I already have had them for 3 years, totally trouble free. Fringecups are native, but this is a cultivated variety that is supposedly more drought tolerant. I investigated natives, but most were taller like Smilacina racemosa, at 3 feet tall. Oxalis oregana (wood sorrel) is low, but might be invasive ground cover,so I was afraid to plant it. However if you have mobility problems maybe it would be perfect-plant one and let it go, then put the chair on top!

So, I can't guarantee these will do well, because the garden is new, and pine vs spruce might be different. Just don't plant ivy!
Mary

Mary, what a tremendous amount of helpful information you are sharing!
And it looks great. Hope it workz out.

Have to agree with summerkid. Thank you SO much Mary! I look forward to your photo-essay. And no fear about the ivy, although I am thinking about that wood sorrel.... :~)

Turtle

Ivy is a perfect plant. For the top of the bookcase.

Sorrel is the worst. But I enjoy fighting and winning. It is tenacious. Nice work under the pine tree.

Ditto on the wood sorrel. I was given some as 'gift' when I was a complete beginner, and I learned to regret ever having planted it several years later, though I'm sure it is fine in its natural woodland setting.

Hmmm.... Is it tenacious as in it'll eat your yard, or as in once its in that spot you'll have to fight to get it out of that spot?

Not as bad as that buttercup stuff! Or St. John's wort. I swear, every groundcover planted in this garden is an obnoxious weed. Even some of the sedums. And euonymus.

summerkid- I have a spot in my yard now where the creeping buttercup is swamping the St. Johns Wort! Hah! Take that SJW!.

Absolutely terrifying.

I have spruce growing in my woods, and here's what I find growing under them: maianthemum (false lily of the valley), Pacific bleeding heart (dicentra formosa), vaccinium parvifolium, (red huckleberries) if there are fallen logs laying around (usually), and sometimes acer circinatum (vine maple) if there is enough space and light for them to get started. Various ferns, still working on ID'ing them all. You might also try salal or bunchberry if you want a native look. I don't seem to have either of those growing naturally for me, not sure why, and my attempts to transplant salal have been failure. You could also try darmera peltata (umbrella plant) which is apparently also a native although I've never seen it growing on its own. I've planted some here and there in my back woods, and they do take well to no care and are a pleasant surprise when I happen onto them. They may want more water than what you might have under the spruce, although some of my spruce are growing in pretty swampy areas so perhaps not.

Thank you bonehead; that's great information. I'm a new PNW-erner and can't go hiking out into this beautiful place, as I would have done in the past, so I treasure learning from others' experiences and observations. Thank you - all - again.

Turtle

Summerkid, when my son was a landscape installer, he ruefully called euonymous: yeah, 'ya wanna miss' that one.

lakestevens gave some awesome ideas! I got some helleborus as a birthday gift last year (October '12) that really took off when I planted it under a red cedar.. and then a whole bunch of varieties went on sale and I planted some under a blue atlas cedar, white Japanese pine, and under a rhododendron.. All have done really well, although 'pink frost' and 'ivory prince' have done the best of the hellebore and still have their flowers! As long as they are in the shade enough.. One of mine I had to transplant more under the blue atlas cedar as the sun was making her all floppy..

Also under my white japanese pine I have hardy geranium that my mother-in-law gave to me as she had too much of it. I don't know what exact variety it is, but it smells so lovely and has white flowers during this time of the year.

I also have some ferns, but the western sword fern has done the best. I have so many great memories of hiking in the PNW and seeing the sword fern I wanted some for under the big trees, and the sword fern does awesome, and even with lack of water, as the red cedar prevents a lot of water from naturally getting to it.

Heuchera is also something I have planted under my atlas cedar, and they are just now really taking off! I planted them in February 2012. Until a month ago, they looked exactly the same as they did when I got them.. but now they are bigger and sprawling a little more since I cut off a few dead leaves on the underside.

My last thought (and you may want a second opinion on this) is some shade hardy strawberry varieties. My parents have (I think it's alpine?) strawberries under a LARGE pine tree which is under a LARGE 10 foot wide and tall? rhododendron, they have to wack back the strawberries every spring, but it produces a lot of fruit in an area that gets hardly filtered sun! I also saw a strawberry patch like this in Hood River, OR.

Anyways, trying out plants under trees I think is fun! A great way to really make an empty space look beautiful by just finding the right fit!

Thanks poobear! And yes it will be fun, and having ideas where to start makes me feel a little bolder. Right now I'm wondering how to add amendments to the soil. The land immediately slopes down from the trunks, and I'm thinkin whoa what'll hold the soil? I can't dig, and I mean physically can't get the soil up, without a noisy machine. Which is what my boys'd do, but I'm not allowing it!

Ahh, so much to do and so much fun to have!

Thank you again. :)

Have you thought about doing some retaining walls, rocks, or built up beds? I attached some photos of some different beds that my husband and I built. Our whole property is sloped.. so I pretty much have made all my beds raised and then fill with very nice soil (helps with the nasty clay soil that I have here as well..)

I have done a bunch of different types of things to help with slopes, the retaining walls my husband had to build, but the brick lines around the beds help keep the loose soil from just landslides.. After heavy rains I then was able to determine where to put dry rock beds to help with water flow.. I will post them next!

Here are some of my rocks to help with water flow.. and in my earlier post in photo #4 you might be able to see the rocks I had put around the retaining wall to help with water flow as well.

In this last photo I am not done yet, still collecting rocks!

Oh poobear, thank you. Yes, I'm thinking of building some short walls too. I really appreciate your pictures, because with one of the trees I'm having trouble visualizing what might work.

T.

So your rocks are where the water collects and moves?

:). I was trying to find a picture of a bed that might be similar to yours, (a built bed around a tree, so I might post some more photos tomorrow if I can find any that are better..

but I actually ended up placing the bigger rocks to try and help water when the heavy rains came and certain plants were starting to get too wet. Plants that are toward the bottom of the slope get more water.. so I was frantically trying to come up with something to help the run off a little bit. Basically the rocks slow the process down. What would happen is all the good soil will just slide away unless something can help contain it, so all the nutrients would go and the plants would have a little bit harder of a time, - this happened in particular in a different area, where I don't have a picture yet, in my shaded garden.. and so I ended up digging and bury rocks in the soil to direct the water like a traffic lane.

In my photos with the extra tall retaining wall, I had to bury and place rocks around where the retaining wall ended and the soil began so that the soil would not just landslide around the wall where it ends. 99% of the time it is totally unnecessary, but when a heavy multiple day rain comes.. it really helps slow the water down.

I will try and find a photo, but the biggest area this helped was on a random spot that just started flooding in my shade garden. I started noticing pools of water.. and they would build up and eventually overflow over the retaining wall. Turns out the last owner had buried a run off tube right there, and so I dug down a little and put some rocks there as a temporary fix until I re-do all the run off into a new rain garden area or something (still have settled onto one plan yet). But, the last heavy multiple day rain that hit Seattle, the rocks totally helped, there was not pooling, and the water would flow on the inside of the rocks into the direction I had set it. And, what I mean by this is the soggyness of the soil. On the lower end the soil would be almost liquid it was too wet, but with a good rock system here or there, the water would be more even, and moist along the way of the rocks not just in a small area of soil. If that makes sense?

The steeper the slope, the more heavy duty of a water flow "system" you will need. On my super slope with the tall retaining wall, placing the rocks around the lower end of the slope for each plant just helps keep the water around the plant a little bit better.

I could be wrong with the raised, retaining walls and rock technique, as I did not learn it from someone, I just was reading about dry run off rock gardens in a magazine and it sparked the idea to try that .. and then when the first heavy rain came I added rocks frantically to try and help and it did for me. The one thing I noticed is if you do not place the loose rocks right they will move with heavy rains, so I always bury and pack them into the slope. Sometimes I take sandy gravel from the driveway area and pack that in first. I sort of dig a little trench, and fill it with rocks. Just make sure you can blast the hose full and the rocks don't go flying everywhere!

Wow, you've done an amazing amount of work. And I think it's brilliant what you figured out.

Thank you turtles! I found this article you might find interesting about planting under trees!

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/planting-under-a-tree.aspx?id=87334

Also, if you have not checked out houzz.. you totally should! They have AWESOME pictures for you to look at to get some ideas! Here is a link for when I searched sloped garden, I get a lot of ideas from that website!
http://www.houzz.com/sloping-garden

You will have to update us with pictures so we can watch your progress in the future!

:~D. It feels all warm and fuzzy that you're interested. Thanks. When there's progress, lol, I will post.

And I shall totally check out your links.

T.