What to plant in a tough area
strafford/NH,
United States 
I have a spot of land that is surrounded by a crabapple tree and some other trees. There are vine like thorny weeds growing in some areas, that wrap themselves upward around the trees. I have raked it all out and would like to know what might grow there to clean it up. The soil seems in good shape, but it is shady and damp under the trees? I was thinking some type of wild flowers, but would want something that would bloom evey year.
24 Apr, 2008
Answers
Hellebores do very well and will self seed very readily which you can pot up and grow on, then put exactly where you want them,
Wib
25 Apr, 2008
When you say you want to grow plants to 'clean up' the area, do you mean you want to plant into the weeds and want the new plants to crowd out the weeds? Or do you mean you want to tidy up the area? You will need to deal with the weeds before you start planting anything, I'm afraid. ANd you need to deal with their roots to stop them coming back. When you've done that you can plant things that are grown cover plants that will stop weeds growing in the future. It sounds like you need suggestions of shade plants - type 'shade' into the search thingy and lots of suggestions/old questions & answere should come up :-)
25 Apr, 2008