HelpfulGardener.com

I know that dry shade is tall order.

Site description:
Steeply sloped garden in the front of our house with a large evergreen and several locust trees. Half of the area is my neighbors and half is mine, which is one of the problems. They've planted english ivy as their solution, but there's also quite a bit of virginia creeper and poison ivy in there too... in addition to the poke weeds and lots of little spreading weeds. My half of the garden is bare because nothing I've planted has been able to compete so I just pull weeds constantly.

Because of the nasty nature of the garden I HATE this space and have to admit I need something fairly aggressive as well. I have much nicer garden space that I prefer to spend my time in so something fairly low maintenance since I'll already have my hands full keeping up with tearing out ivy (poison and english) that creeps on my side. However, I don't want anything too evil!

Here's what I've tried that has failed...
Epimedium (it should be coming up now right? I don't see any sign of it)
Lamium (it looked like some kind of bug got to it because it had lots of holes in it then disappeared)
Astilbe (I relocated them when they weren't doing well and they've recovered in their new home)

I have some tri-colored bugleweed that I don't particularly love where I have it and was thinking about moving some there. I have mixed feelings about bugleweed, but since I need something low maintenance but aggressive enough to form a dense mat to keep others out... maybe it would be appropriate here?

Any suggestions?

I've thought about wintergreen or bunchberry because the soil is acidic, but since it's a bit of a neglected garden I'd hate to fail again with them and think I may need something more aggressive. I have another place in mind where I'd like to replace some Lilly of the valley with them.

The bugleweed would be a good choice or bishop's weed (gout weed). The bishop's weed is nice looking, variegated, very aggressive spreader, but doesn't tend to spread in to lawn/turf, very good at choking out weeds or anything else. I wouldn't ordinarily recommend it, because of the aggressiveness, but it seems to meet what you need and being in dry shade should slow it down from spreading to rapidly. It is edible and has medicinal properties.

I'm actually very surprised to hear you recommend that RBG! I was searching through posts on here about ground covers before I posted and I read one where you were warning against using Bishops Weed. You think this might be an appropriate use of it though?

Part of me hates to do that to my neighbors, but then again they did plant the ivy and don't even touch the garden (I rip the ivy off of their trees and have worked on their poison ivy since their kids run into the area sometimes). I really really love my neighbors but everything they've planted is "low maintenance" meaning aggressive and invasive because they don't want to spend any time gardening. Since Bishop's Weed isn't vining, maybe I'm fighting their evil with a lesser evil? Since it is surrounded by lawn maybe the Bishop's weed would be a better choice than Ajuga since you mentioned it doesn't tend to spread into the lawn.

I looked again this morning and did see some tiny epimedium leaves starting to emerge though! If I got enough of that established do you think it's strong enough to choke out the leaves or is it hard to get established so densely? It's a fairly large space... maybe 20ft long and 10 feet wide.

Yeah.... I should bite my tongue. Like I said I ordinarily would not recommend bishop's weed, an invasive exotic. But personally I've never had any luck getting epimedium going - it's another one of those things that needs acid soil and curls up and dies in my alkaline soil. If your soil is acidic, give the epimedium a good try. If not, you may be stuck with something like the bishop's weed.

Haha, I'm not trying to give you a hard time RBG! I just meant that getting that recommendation from you must mean that it's a bad situation because I do know you wouldn't normally recommend it

I'm shocked to see the the epimedium emerging! I had lost hope because my mom's and neighbor's epimediums are all out and blooming already. I'm sure the tiny little heart shaped leaves emerging are epimedium though! It looks like I only have 1 of 3 plants that were planted. They were expensive plants, so that's unfortunate, but at least one seems to have made it! I may have to heavily mulch until I can get some good plants established.

Are there any ferns that can handle dry shade?

yes, actually: ferns for dry shade: Male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas) and Lady fern (Anthyrium filix-femina) and Christmas fern.

I like Lambs Ear and some of the grasses for my dry, shady areas. I know people often think of grasses for sunny locations, but I have some in shade that do very well—they just don't get very large (which is ok with me as I like to control those areas). I'm thinking of plants like Blue Fescue (which looks terrific with Lambs Ear by the way), and is ok with a bit of trampling as well. Happy gardening!

Thanks for the fern recommendations RBG! I'll have to keep an eye out for the varieties you mentioned. I don't have many shady spots in my garden so I like the idea of being able to set up a woodland space there, if I can get things to grow! The epimedium is doing well and is blooming, it was just late to the party. It gives me hope though!

I never thought of using lamb's ear in full shade. I have tons of the stuff so it wouldn't be any loss to give it a try. I'm always ripping the stuff out to keep it in check. My only concern is having it reseed and spread into my lawn. The variety I have most of does bloom, although maybe it won't bloom in the shade? I do like lambs ear, but am worried I won't be able to keep up with it.