Under tree planting creates a harmonious landscape that complements the natural environment right beneath the often-overlooked canopies of our native trees. The concept of “Soft Landings”, or under tree plantings, offers a transformative approach to enriching these underutilized spaces. These areas can enhance the aesthetic appeal of our gardens and significantly bolstering local ecosystems.
This expanded guide delves deeper into how homeowners, even those unfamiliar with the nuances of native landscaping, can integrate these principles to foster a more vibrant, ecologically sound yard and garden with plantings under your trees.
Embrace the Shade: Cultivating Under Tree Plantings
Underneath the sprawling branches of native trees lies a realm of potential, a blank canvas awaiting strokes of greens, browns, and wonderful flower colors that mirror the natural world. The varied light, moisture, and soil composition conditions create a dynamic environment ripe for introducing under tree plantings.
These understory environments thrive in these filtered light conditions. Choosing plants that naturally complement and coexist with these trees beautifies the space and contributes to local biodiversity.
The plants you choose should range from ground covers to native grasses and flowers, vines, and native shrubs. Creating a layering effect improves the biodiversity of the soft landing and provides added beneficial conditions.
Keystone Species: The Cornerstones of Under Tree Plantings
Keystone species, such as oaks (Quercus), cherry and plum trees (Prunus), willows (Salix), and birch (Betula), play a pivotal role in sustaining local ecosystems. They host a plethora of insect species essential for a functioning food web. They are an ideal choice to increase their ecosystem benefits by intending the benefits with under tree plantings.
By incorporating understory plantings that cater to the needs of these insects, particularly during their vulnerable pupae stage, we can ensure their survival and the health of the ecosystem at large. This approach aligns with the findings of ecologists like Dr. Doug Tallamy, emphasizing the importance of native plantings in supporting biodiversity. As an aside, I recommend reading, or listening to all of Doug Tallamy’s books; Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard, Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, and The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees.
These keystone species provide a great opportunity to add a shrub, or understory tree, layer beneath them that supports and hosts more species. Some of these under tree plantings could include dogwoods (Cornus), chokeberry (Aronia), elderberry (Sambucus), spicebush (Lindera), viburnum (Viburnum), and serviceberry (Amelanchier) among others.
These smaller trees and shrubs then allow for more plantings under them in terms of native flowers and groundcovers.
Plant Selection: Tailoring Your Under Tree Plantings to the Environment
Selecting the right plants for your soft landing involves carefully considering your garden’s unique conditions. Opt for species that thrive in the shade beneath the tree canopy and can handle the transition to sunnier spots beyond the drip line.
In my yard, for instance, I don’t yet have any established large trees for under tree plantings. So, I am adding more trees and shrubs closer to one another and creating soft landings by using arborist chips to connect groupings together vs mowing around each tree or creating mulch rings.
Incorporating a mix of flowering perennials, grasses, and sedges enriches the landscape’s texture and color and supports a broader range of wildlife. Which plants you select really fall under the category that you will often hear in the native plant movement – “it depends”.
And, it does depend; it depends on the size of the trees you have now, how many there are, the type of tree and its roots, the soil, moisture, amount of sun etc. But, the good news! There is a native plant for whatever the conditions are where you will establish your soft landing.
Beyond Aesthetics: 5 Ecological Benefits of Under Tree Planting
The advantages of adopting the Soft Landings strategy extend well beyond its visual appeal. Here are five:
Biodiversity Support
By offering food and shelter, these plantings create a haven for beneficial insects, pollinators, and other wildlife. Many insects overwinter in leaf litter that, interestingly enough, falls from these trees that we then rake, blow, and mulch up. However, a soft landing allows you to leave the leaves where they fall in the fall. :-)
In addition, caterpillar life cycles frequently include the caterpillars falling off the tree into the under tree plantings and then spending some period of their life cycle in the leaf litter or burrowing into the ground under the trees. If we don’t allow this to happen, we are basically creating a death trap wherein they can not complete their life cycles.
Conservation Efforts
Reducing the need for mowing and mulching conserves time and resources and promotes soil health through the natural decomposition of organic matter.
Solitary Nature
Most native bees are solitary, meaning each female builds and manages her own nest without the help of a colony. Most of our native bees live underground; soft landings are ideal locations for these native bee homes. Learn more about specialist and generalist bees.
Water Management
These landscapes are crucial in managing stormwater, enhancing water infiltration, and minimizing erosion.
Climate Resilience
Soft Landings contribute to a landscape’s resilience against climatic shifts through increased carbon sequestration and improved soil conditions.
Under Tree Planting Installation Insights
When preparing for a soft landing installation, minimizing disturbance to the existing trees is critical. Strategies such as layering arborist wood chips to suppress unwanted vegetation can protect tree roots and promote healthier growth.
When planting, choose smaller plugs over larger, containerized plants to avoid disrupting the soil and roots. Smaller plugs are cheaper and typically experience less transplant shock than a 3-gallon plant.
When planting shrubs, place them between trees and not directly against the trunk, as it’ll be better overall, and it will not disrupt the tree enough to do damage.
Ensure your new under tree plantings get sufficient water to get established. Large, expansive, established tree roots can easily rob moisture from new plants until they get established.
Final Thoughts
Incorporating soft landings, in the form of under tree plantings, into your yard’s design is more than just planting under trees; it’s about reimagining your space as a living, breathing landscape that supports and nurtures local ecosystems.
Using turf only as walking paths between large soft landing areas creates a more biodiverse landscape. By embracing these principles, you can directly enhance biodiversity, support pollinators, and contribute to a healthier planet.
Let’s transform our gardens into sanctuaries of life, one soft landing at a time.
I’m Patrick! Let’s go native!
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There are a lot of “rules” we’ve been told over the years and some hard-and-fast beliefs that we’ve developed as homeowners and gardeners. If you’d like help to understand a more eco-friendly, natural, and beneficial method, please reach out to learn more, and we can go native together!