I have wintercreeper and hostas under my large maple tree. I'm zone 6. Some consider wintercreeper invasive, but I haven't found that so here. Twice a summer I cut down what is trying to grow up the tree and up the brick on the house. Other than that it is maintenance free. It does take a couple years to become established, but after that it fills in nicely.

Take a look at Lamium (Silver Beacon)

Other way round. Beacon Silver.

Try any of the athyrium ferns.

Where in the world is this tree?

What is going to work is going to depend on how much water (precipitation) is available.

In other words, what doesn't grow under my red maple? (Acer rubrum) Pretty much all the usual groundcover suspects, and a lot more weeds than I would like.

However, in some parts of the world, the red maple will make water and nutrient availability ...well very low. Ephemerals (that are present before leaves on the maple are) will do well though.

I’d go for a bench and a bunch of pots with hostas in them.

I grow epimediums and Autumn Bride heuchera at the base of 40 yo maple and blue spruce. An occasional extra watering is needed.

You may be able to get Liriope spicata established. NOT L. muscari.

Laceyvail, don't you have those backwards? You really want the clumping, L muscari.

https://www.walterreeves.com/gardening-q-and-a/liriope-spreading-monkey-grass/

Thanks, all, for the suggestions! I am in SE Michigan. Generally we have wet springs and dry, dry, summers...but not always. Supplemental watering will not be a problem, but whatever I plant will receive almost no sunlight once the tree leafs out, not even dappled. I've not had much luck with heuchera surviving winter; if they come back, they come back puny, but perhaps I am not planting a hardy enough variety. I'll start researching the other suggestions. Thank you!

does grass grow under the tree?? ... maybe i missed it?

it might not hurt to confirm the tree id ... [unless you are sure] ...... there are red norway maples also???? .. and they are worse.

Hi Ken, no, grass doesn't grow beneath it. The ground is just a mangled mess of roots. I can't remember the shape of the leaves, though it does have a bit of chlorosis (while my Norway maple does not). It's just so darned shady beneath it once it leafs out, and the branches are quite low. It's not a very tall tree, almost wider than it is tall. It's pretty, though, in summer and fall.

No, tigereye, you want the spreading one if you want to establish a groundcover under a maple. And it might not work for this one as described.

Well, I have the clumping one under my maple and it is doing great.

I have a maple which has red leaves in fall, and there is no root competition to my hostas underneath. You could dig and see if you have maple roots underneath the surface. There are bags being sold to keep any roots away from your hostas.

Some trees are easier to underplant than others. Maples tend to have a lot of surface-oriented roots and they are aggressive competitors for soil moisture and nutrients. It is best to select plants that will thrive in dry shade.....lamium and epimediums are good choices but there are others than can work as well. And even shade and drought tolerant groundcovers or low growing perennials will need some babying to get established in this situation.

imo .. if the most invasive weed in the world... grass .. will not grow under a tree ... you will have a very hard.. if not impossible .... time growing hosta under it ....

pots on top of the ground is one option .....

options other than hosta have been noted above

ken

Beautiful, pennlake! My area in question is not nearly so magical, but perhaps I will start with some hosta or lamium and see how they fare. I'll also ask my husband to cut the bottom branches, maybe that'll get me a bit of sunlight, at least in the morning. Thank you, all, for your suggestions!

Pennlake, you have chosen a lot of excellent plants for planting under your trees.

lovemycorgi, your idea of starting with some choice plants and removing lower tree branches is a good one. I would suggest trying the older, reliable hostas that seem to be more hardy first---eg. undulatas, lancifolia, fortunei hyacinthina. You can also expect growth to be slower due to the roots and drier soil conditions.

I have found that plants considered invasive (in some parts of the country) or plants for dry shade are good choices. The tree roots rarely ever let these plants get out of control. One of my favorites is Sweet Woodruff. It's a ground cover that stays in control when planted under surface rooted trees.

"One of my favorites is Sweet Woodruff. It's a ground cover that stays in control when planted under surface rooted trees."

LOL!! Not in my world! I find this to be an overly aggressive spreader wherever it is located. I planted it in my old garden - big mistake - and in my current inherited garden, it is only one of several aggressive to outright invasive groundcovers that I am pulling out constantly.

But different GC's do behave differently under different circumstances :-) Everyone laments about how aggressive lily of the valley is yet I have persistent difficulty in cultivating a thriving patch.......YMMV

In the spring I throw Osmocote under the maple to help the ground cover and hostas get the nourishment it needs for the summer. It made a big difference. When we moved in the ground cover and hostas were straggly, now it is full and lush.

We used to have a sycamore tree by the street. They were planted by the builder in 1965 on both sides of the street and were intended to arch over the street. Well, that didn't work well with the power lines on the other side of the street. It was okay on our side until it got the blight and died.

Before it died, I found some ground cover after we moved in and transplanted it under the tree. It looked great! No maintenance at all. Well, it just sat and lurked. Overnight it seemed to turn into a tree or bush!

It was wintercreeper, Euonymus fortunei, It may be a great plant somewhere else, but in North Alabama, it is a thug. I am STILL pulling it out twenty years later from all over the yard.

ETA: Forty years later!

Under my large old maple (not actually mine, it is right on the other side of the fence and 50% overhangs my yard) I have hostas, epimedium, some daffodils, Japanese painted fern (did have to baby that one the first year or two with water) some other unknown ferns from a mail-order "grab bag" , and pulmonaria; vinca minor is the groundcover that fills in around these and I think helps retain moisture. That does want to spread out of the bed, so I have to pull it back every year or so. There are a few bishop's weed too, but I think the competition has kept it in check. The soil is clay. wet in late winter/early spring but dry in summer/fall.

Do limb up the tree - I think that is the secret to my success.

gardengal48, I have two sugar maples in my backyard which are about 20 feet apart. I would say they are about 100+ years old each. My Sweet Woodruff grows slowly along with most of my other plants. In the 30+ years I have lived here, my Sweet Woodruff has behaved itself, growing slowly and rarely needing to be cut back.

My spin out bags get invaded in two or three years. As the tree gets larger, the surface roots get worse. What I have also learned is that roots are not spread out evenly in the ground. That was an eye opener for me. There may be wetter areas in your garden and most likely, surface roots would be abundant there. Also tree roots extend way beyond the tree canopy.

Can I put a word in for Cylamen hederifolium, if it will grow in your zone? Will grow in dry shade under deciduous trees. Blooms late summer followed by heart shaped evergreen leaves with silvery markings.

Following up on Floral, it even prefers dry shade of decidious trees. A wonderful siting actually. Add cyclamen coum in there too if you want, never did say what zone you are in.

In general most bulbs are considered ephemerals and will probably do average to well there, especially the smaller ones.

OP said they're in 5b.

newhostalady, my comment was only intended to remark that different groundcovers behave differently in different situations. Because one is well-behaved in one garden does not necessarily mean it will be well-behaved elsewhere. Or vice versa. Every gardening situation is unique and few plants will perform uniformly regardless of where or under what conditions they are planted.

And I am very familiar with how different tree species grow, which ones have a lot of surface roots and how far those roots can travel. I am a consulting horticulturist and a garden designer and do this for a living :-)

dbarron, I have found that Grecian windflower, Anemone blanda, performs very well under these situations. And can spread to form a wonderful spring blooming carpet!! Will even tolerate underplanting a black walnut!

The only one of the top 3 plants for dry shade not mentioned so far is Geranium macrorrhizum. The other two being Epimedium & Polygonatum (Solomons's Seal).

I have an area that I garden between an enormous sugar maple and a large butternut. Another plant that does well there is Phlox stolonifera 'Bruce's White', 'Home Fires' would do equally well. Actaea rubra seeded into the area and is quite happy.

Interesting about Cyclamen. The only species I know of that would be hardy here are C. hederifolium & C. purpurascens.

I dunno about those "top 3 plants" for dry shade, peren :-) With the exception of the epis, they are not my top choices. I really do not care for Geranium macrorrhizum at all and seldom use it for this purpose. And IME, solomon's seal is not all that dry soil tolerant.

But I am willing to admit that my zone 8 choices for dry shade may exceed those available for a zone 5 garden. This is a very common gardening situation here in the land of the big trees (and bone dry summers) so a full repertoire of plants for dry shade is necessary for me to get my job done :-) I have about a dozen or so I typically resort to.

I (fortunately!) don’t have maples but do have white pines that are still branched low to the ground. It is very dark and dry under there and very little will grow beyond the outer edge of the canopy. The two things that do grow well under there are the things gg48 does not like :-) i.e. Sweet Woodruff and Geranium macrorrhizum! Hostas will grow closer to the edge of the canopy but struggle further in. Things that go dormant- e.g. trilliums, bloodroot, and some bulbs (snowdrops will grow but no cyclamens ever survived here...) do reasonably well. Lamium never survived for me under these trees. I think you just have to experiment with what appeals to you on lists of plants for dry shade that are hardy in your conditions.

gardengal48, I am aware you are a frequent poster and are very knowledgeable in horticulture. I was just trying to say that Sweet Woodruff has been one of the plants that has been controlled by roots in my garden, and I like it very much. I know that each garden is unique and will offer different challenges.

Many forum members have asked advice regarding planting under "mature" maple trees or other trees with lots of surface roots. I have to wonder what size tree is being talked about. I think there is a lot of difference if you are planting under a juvenile maple tree, a young "mature" maple tree (that has merely attained about half of its mature height) or a fully "mature" maple tree that has grown to its expected size. And then I think there is a difference between how close you plant to the tree.

As ever a picture would be fantastically useful.

My suspicion is that it is a fairly large Japanese maple - something like Bloodgood.

In which case, I'd avoid planting much of anything beneath it!! Japanese maples have very sensitive root systems that resent any sort of disturbance. One can introduce some rather serious pathogens by digging, cultivating or planting around the roots and a mature Japanese maple is a far more valuable addition to a garden than a bunch of manky perennials!

If it is a JM, then just mulch. Or a single, easily spreading type of groundcover.

I have a crimson King maple Which densely shades part of my front and side yard. I have managed to plant numerous hostas and some shade loving perennials. I agree with others who have mentioned limbing up the tree. Every couple of years I have the tree thinned out. At one point one of the branches overhung the sidewalk so much a person could reach up and touch it easily. I also do the trimming to keep branches from scraping my roof and my neighbors. This will help provide more dappled shade, but will do nothing about the roots, alas.

I have nothing but suface roots and leaf litter under my 40 yr old Japanese maple..it's a beautiful tree and trying to dig between roots scares me..so I toss handfuls of my homemade compost in any low bare spots and forget it..and it looks fine!..it's to the right of Blue Angel..some branches by the deck..

Wow, thank you all so much for sharing your knowledge and expertise, I have so much to consider!

I'm pretty sure it's a red maple, here is a picture from a couple of summers ago. I can actually see grass beneath it, so perhaps it's not as much of a lost cause as I thought. The roots are horrendous, however, all over the ground beneath it.

Once again, thank you so much for all the help!

it's so dark underneath that tree!..I wouldn't worry about it..

I have a Japanese red maple (purple leaves) under which I planted pachysandra. The pachysandra provides a dense cover (pretty much maintenance free), but does not seem to affect the health of the maple. My tree is planted in a sunny location, but it is so dense once the leaves open that the pachysandra only receives a little sun.