Around here folks use pinestraw mostly. With the old leaves dropping throughout early to late spring anything small underneath would be smothered and anything large would just catch the old magnolia leaves and look bad until they could be removed. It's easiest to rake and replace fresh straw. Also heavy dry shade limits what would grow.

Maybe one of the taller growing Liriope would do...you can rake thru these with bamboo rake to remove magnolia leaves and they survive dry shade fairly well...a variegated selection might be nice. josh

Thanks for the suggestion, Josh. I realized I have a few liriopes in my yard now that I googled for a picture of them. I think I'll give them a shot, and hope for the best.

Down south the old standard is the cast iron plant. Liriope are also very common.
Mike

We don't grow anything under ours. We are constantly raking the leaves up underneath the tree in order to keep them out of the yard.

The leaves are very difficult to compost because they are so leathery.

I have had no luck getting anything to grow under our trees. I tried a couple of ground covers with no real luck.

Anything you plant under there has got to be tough enough to deal with the raking and leaf gathering which is unavoidable.

Aubrey