Grass doesn't like it under the trees. It was looking rough, so last fall I put down a fresh layer of dirt and seeded. Grass seemed to be coming up, but this spring….nothing. Neighbors are suggesting ground cover instead of grass. I'm fine with that idea, but how do I blend ground cover with grass on the sunny half of my back yard?
by JeanetteWattsAuthor
2 Comments
You never actually blend ground cover into grass because it just looks like a neglected weed patch and makes mowing a nightmare. What you need is a hard structural transition. You have to define a clear sweeping bed line that separates the shade zone under those mature trees from the sunny grass area. Grab a garden hose and lay out a massive smooth curve that captures the entire root zone where the grass keeps dying. Dig a deep spade cut trench along that hose line. Everything inside the curve becomes your new shade bed and everything outside stays grass.
Once you have that bed defined you need to plant it in solid sweeping masses so it looks intentional. Forget scattering little random plants around the dirt. Fill the floor with a tough shade lover like native wild ginger or sweet woodruff. Then add some structural height near the tree trunks with big drifts of ferns or hostas to give the eye something to look at besides a flat floor. If you cannot picture exactly where that curved transition line should go or what plants look best together jump on the GardenDream web app. You can upload a photo of this dirt patch and overlay the ground cover and bed lines so you have a solid blueprint before you start spending money on flats of plants.
You can use steppable ground covers in the new bed though. Yarrow, frogfruit and more depending on your USDA zone are fine with some foot traffic. You might use them to edge the new bed as a transition from useable lawn to the new garden bed. I’d have a wide mowing strip between them and lawn because they would look sloppy up against lawn due to lack of contrast in size/texture.