In article , "Crabby Barnacle"
wrote:

I have a huge 100 year old Myrtle tree. (NOT a crepe myrtle). It's the
kind of Myrtle that's also called a California Bay Laurel. I've heard it's
a big allelopathic (sp?). I'd like to do some underplanting and add some
low evergreen shrubs near it.

Does anybody have experience about companion planting with this tree?

I think Salem Or might be good camellia country, & most Camellia sasanquas
stay pretty small (seven feet high if trellised, or can be left free to
sprawl as snaky humpy groundcovers); they like the shade & the only worry
would be if the tree sucked the ground too dry or you forgot to water
under the tree enough. The cliche evergreen shrub for under trees is
Aucuba; to ever have the huge berries you have to have at least two
shrubs, one of them a male. Also Japanese holly, the one with black
winter berries, will do nicely in shade. Whatever you end up deciding on,
you should also put in a few Cyclamen coum and/or C. hederofolum tubors,
because these thrive up next to tree trunks & don't seem to mind getting a
bit dry from time to time, blooming Autumn and Winter very short, then
gorgeous leaves winter & spring. The tubors live pretty much forever, as
long as many trees live anyway. I'm just totally enamored of cyclamens &
surprised so many gardeners don't have them or think they're delicate.

-paghat

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/