Hi Anne,

Thanks! The fire was fueled by pine needles and fallen branches, leaves,
etc.. It was that Sunday evening a few weekends ago where it was really nice
during the day and then got really windy at night. Our neighbor had a small
bonfire going down by our lake and the wind picked up suddenly and that was
all it took. I had a couple of fire extinguishers and a hose and went over
there as soon as she called me but it spread faster than you would imagine.
The fire extinguishers were pretty much worthless. Luckily the Bahama
Volunteer Fire Department did a great job of containing it and putting it
out. We will be forever grateful to them, with that fire and the wind
feeding it, it looked for a while like everything was going to go up in
flames.

Robert

"Anne Lurie" wrote in message
. com...
Robert,

I *think* that azaleas should grow fairly well in partial pine shade
(assuming the sun shines on the azaleas part of the day).

If you like hostas, you might check out the selection at Plant Delights
http://www.plantdelights.com/, where there are a "gazillion" varieties for
sale.

BTW, do you know what fueled the fire? Was it the pine needles under the
pine trees? (There are pine trees near my house, but I always thought the
pine needles themselves were too damp to burn; I might re-think that and
rake more of them onto compost piles.)

Anne Lurie
NE Raleigh


"Robert" wrote in message
hlink.net...
After working outside on our property all last weekend I'm really
looking
forward to getting down to some gardening this year ;-)

A large part of our 2.5 acre lot is wooded with very tall pine trees (no
lower branches, branches and needles up towards the top) and some
smaller
hardwood trees (1" - 6" diameter). After our neighbor had a fire in the
woods we've decided to clear out some of the smaller trees, pine needles
and
vines and try to get some mixture of ground cover and flowering plants
going
to provide us a buffer around the house in case of another fire.

Can anyone recommend plants that grow well in the shade, that will have
some
variety in color, size, etc?

You can get a pretty good idea of what the area I'm talking about looks
like
in the second photo down he

http://woozy.com/fire/

We don't plan on planting the whole thing, but a good 20 - 30' out from
the
house is what the fire department recommends. We have about 10' of lawn
and
then we need to go 10 - 20 into the woods.

Thanks,

Robert