Hi Robert,
Fine Gardening's June 03 issue had an article about choosing appropriate
plants for areas prevalent to fires. The article listed several plants
which were fire retarding (not apt to burst into flames--fleshy moist
leaves, deciduous trees and shrubs) which should be planted next to a
home structure, and fire resistant plants (less likely than other plants
to burn, will slow an incoming fire) which should be planted farther out
from a structure.
Some examples:
Fire-retardent:
Bergenias
Blueberries, huckleberries
Daylillies
Dwarf periwinkles
Lilacs
Viburnums
Lawn Grasses
Wisterias
Fire-Resistent
Bearberry
Columbines
Contoneasters
Poplars
Salal
Sumacs
Wintergreen
Yarrows
Beyond the subject of fire retardent plants, my favorite shade loving
plants that perform well in our shadies spots --
Columbine
heuchera
camelias
hostas
anemones
sweet sarcocoa
daylillies
confederate jasmine
indian hawthorne
hellebores
daffodills
bleeding hearts
ferns
astilbe
foxgloves
pachysandra
happy gardening!
Heidi
Robert wrote:
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