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Gettingaway,
Congrats on your home purchase. THere is alot to learn about
a house when you buy them.
First of all, if you are in Texas, it probably will get REALLY hot there in the
summer months.
Air conditioning is expensive in those high temps.
THe outside becomes miserable by the end of July.
That gorgeous old oak tree will save you soooo much money on air
condiitoning if you leave it alone, you will love that tree.
Also, when you walk outside, you won't have that hot sun beating on you
as soon as you try to get into your hot car.
Go to any store, and buy a rake.
I have a plastic one, it didn't even cost me 20.00.
Rake up all the leaves and acorns. It will look alot better.
If you want to, you can buy some of that nice dark brown mulch, and
lightly cover the area, also around the azelas, that are growing around
your front yard,
Don't put it on thick, just enough so it looks real nice.
It will look nice and neat, and wait til all the leaves have fallen from
the tree and then you lightly mulch where you want.
It will look nice and neat.
By the way, great tree.
I need to have the tree trimmed. Will the St augustine grass require a lot of water? I heard that's the best grass for Texas climate.
It can, but I hand water. We aren't on restrictions, but I hate to see a sprinkler out there just blowing water in the air.
I go out there and hand water around the area every three days or so - just enough to wet the ground, not cause a mud pit. Since I do it consistently, the ground doesn't dry out. My grass looks great right now. I did feed it a few weeks ago. I couldn't wait!
I need to have the tree trimmed. Will the St augustine grass require a lot of water? I heard that's the best grass for Texas climate.
I agree with butterfly4u. Just raking up the leaves and acorns and putting out some nice mulch can look good too. Easy to maintain if you don't want to go the grass route.
The other posters have said it all. Shade, nature etc don't cut down the oak. But if you want it to look nice and neat:
1. Edge next to the path. You can try brick edging. Dig gently to see if you can make a straight trench without damaging the tree roots too much.
2. Pull out the burning bushes. I bet someone will want these. You can probably put them in pots with a sign that says "free".
3. Edge between the lawn area and the grass-free zone under the oak. You can put down as long as you don't pile it up around the trunk of the tree. Leave a space of a couple of inches around the trunk.
I use a half moon edger and a straight edge shovel and that seems to work the best to cut edges.
Make it all a planting bed for low sun perennials. LINK
Your search ended up providing a list of perennials that need full sun, instead of what you intended it to do. Woops! I know what you meant was plants that thrive in the shade.
I did a search with "planting under an oak tree shade plants" and got this:
My mom always paid a landscape artist for a plan for our yards. We only moved a couple of times and were not rich by any stretch of the imagination. But, she would splurge on a design by a pro, then she would go buy the plants and plant them herself (with our whiney help lol!) So, you might want to consider hiring a pro, just for the design, if you don't want to pay to have it all done for you.
I was thinking your yard already is basically a no-lawn type of yard. And I was thinking some hostas would be really pretty under the tree. A shade garden, at any rate, like MrRational suggested.
Here are some photos I found that are basically what I had in mind:
You'll have to deal with the leaves that fall off the tree. My thinking is that if the planting is thick enough, then you can just use a leaf blower. Whereas, if you do a planting with bark or mulch around it, it will be a pain to get rid of the leaves - without getting rid of the mulch/bark at the same time.
Anyway, I hope you come back and show us what you did with your yard. I'd lean toward keeping the tree, too. You'll be happy for the shade come summer.
One amazing way to quickly clear leaves is to stand in one spot, rake leaves towards your feet, rotating in a circle. Move to another spot and do the same. Keep repeating until the area is full of small piles of leaves (and acorns). Next get a tarp (doesn't have to be a big tarp, the lighter the better) Lay it out between piles and rake piles onto tarp. Now you have to pick a place to drag them to. I had a half acre yard in Memphis and I put them in the back corner. Each year they composted down and you couldn't even tell they were there. It's a good way to compost leaves. If you have to bag them it's probably easier to pour them from a tarp into a bag but that complicates this method. I like the rake-drag-dump method.
Like someone suggested, try planting Hosta. They are fairly resilient. I would suggest, also Caladiums, and/or Coleus, along with the Hosta. It would make a striking bed arrangement. I would not cut that magnificent tree down under any circumstance.
I'd probably plant some Asiatic Jasmine in that area. Just run the mower over it once or twice a year on a high setting to tidy it up.
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