Gardening Bytes

Archive for the ‘Planting Under Trees’ Category

Deer will eat just about anything if they are hungry enough, so be prepared to see nibbles on your plants if food is scare. Here are some plants and shrubs that will help keep the deer from being interested in eating them. Low growing heathers are a good choice because they always look good with only a trim of old flowers off the stems, they tend to be strong growing shrubs. Kramer’s Rote is a beautiful green leaf heather with abundant pink and cream flowers that looks good all year long and grows about a foot tall and twice as wide. Catnip may float cat’s boats but deer do not like the aroma of this plant. Blue Wonder is a dwarf catnip that grows about a foot tall. Periwinkle (Vinca minor) is another choice for planting that deters deer and always looks good in the garden. Lilyturf (Liriope spicata) is an ornamental grass that grows only 1 inch high and produces a spikey flower when blooming. Low growing herbs such as Thyme are a good choice for gardens and less appealing to Deer. Wooley Thyme (creeping thyme) is a good choice for a thicker version of thyme with a wooley texture that forms a wide mat when growing, keeping weeds down and looking attractive beneath the base of other plants. Lambs Ear Silver Carpet is a perfect low growing ground cover, give it a lot of room to grow. This non-flowering Lambs Ear creates a thick carpet of silvery shaped leaves that crowds out weeds and makes a great easy care groundcover for hard to plant areas.

Italian Arum (Arum italicum) is a sturdy, easy to grow perennial garden plant with striking marbled green leaves and bright orange red berries in winter. Arum resembles the Jack-in-the-Pulpit plant. Italian Arum grows in partial to full shade and prefers moist but well-drained soil. These corms are easy to grow and do best in woodland areas, often forming colonies over time. In may green spathes grow one to one and a half feet tall, hosting modest but unusual flowers that appear in May, then the leaves die back in summer to reappear in fall. The real show stopper is the foot tall stems that features bright red 3-inch clusters of berries in winter. Italian Arum works well surrounding the shady base of trees or in shady parts of your yard, and is a deer-resistant plant. Italian Arum is a Mediterranean plant that is hardy in winter through most of zone 6. Italian Arum is poisonous when eaten, it is best to monitor children around these plants. To propogate from the Italian Arum colony divide corms in the summer.

Planting under trees can be a difficult task. Finding plants that thrive under what trees where it is often dry and shady can be daunting. Early spring bulbs are a good choice for planting under trees. Good choices for bulbs to plant under trees include bluebells, snowdrops and wood anemones. Hardy bulbs such as crocus and miniature iris may also be worth trying at the base of trees.