I commented on some thread recently that planting trees on the north side of a bed allows you to have both sun and shade plantings. With the young magnolias and serviceberry in bloom now in the front garden and the bulbs, perennials and other things starting to make a show, I'm generally happy with 'trees to the north' placement. A few pictures from this morning:

The north side of the front bed:

The big cedar clump came with the house. The rest are things planted since we started gardening here in spring 2000. Here's a similar view from June last year after the trees have leafed out:

The plantings under the magnolias and the cedar are mostly shade plants like the hostas you can see there. Except there is one white delphinium that comes up by the cedar - it has been there for probably more than 10 years and blooms every year. It's had to believe it can survive in that very dry, shady spot with the root competition from the cedar. I think it was a leftover seedling I dumped in there in the early days of the garden....

Once the trees have leafed out, the flowery part of the garden is quite hidden when approaching the house from the north.

This view from this morning shows both the sunny south side and the treed north side:

The Chinese wisteria 'tree' (bottom, left side of the picture) does cast some shade once it leafs out. We keep the tree to about 8' or so and most of the shade falls on the grass path, but some year soon I think we may decide to shorten and narrow the bulk of that wisteria. If it doesn't bloom well this spring, we might do it this year.

I'm always trying to figure out how to pack the most stuff into a space :-) The 'trees on the north' works well to give me both sun and shade plants in the same general area.

What are your favorite garden 'tricks'?