Constructing and maintaining shrub and perennial gardens is a Maggie's Farm hobby. Here's good gardening advice from a commenter at some gardening site I was looking at the other day:
JUST STOP!
Take a deep breath and a few steps away from the tree. Look at the package you have created and realize that you are more of a "crammer" than a designer. Your apparent desire is not to better display your specimen but rather to create more room to cram in ever more plants - "I want to be able to have the bottom more open for plants under it."
I believe the overall effect of your landscape would be much improved if you graduated to the design level where you begin an analysis of what you already have and start editing. DIY'ers often fail to realize that as gardens mature, they are dealing with a different set of design parameters than when they began. This present situation requires a different thought process.
When you first began, it was probably "more is better" because you had so much open space to fill. Your landscape has matured to the point that it is now craving some unity and simplification -- yet, here you are trying to figure out how to add even more.
When you go out, do you put on every piece of jewelry that you own or do you select only a few that serve to highlight? Think about your garden in the same way.
Image is a well-balanced garden, mature and perfect, at Christchurch, Oxford, from a post on English Gardens
Tracked: Mar 27, 21:51