I have had a love/hate relationship with the large sycamore tree in my
front yard ever since I moved here. On the one hand it was the only
shade tree on the entire front half of the property and is over 40
feet tall plus the bark is lovely in winter with the patches of white
and grey. On the other hand it has a weak-looking crotch with one
half leaning towards the house, my bedroom in particular, and part of
it breaks everytime we have a storm (which is often. Also I seem to
be allergic to the fuzzy balls, the fungus/mildew/whatever on the
leaves, or both. And the large leaves are messy and it offers no fall
color.

But after last night with thunderstorms doing a little bit more damage
to it, I finally made up my mind to get rid of it before wind splits
it at the crotch and dumps half of it on the house. In it's place
will be a pair of trees, a dawn redwood and a crabapple - probably
prarie fire. Common as hell but they do very well here and offer
attractive flowers and fruit. The redwood is about 13 feet tall and
with care should grow fast enough to keep me from missing the sycamore
too much.

I have no clue what to do with the plants that were underneath it. A
dozen or so hostas, some wintergreen, some pachysandra terminalis, a
couple of nice clumps of lenten rose, and some shade-loving violets.
I have room to move some hostas on the north side of the house where I
have a fence that is covered with vines... between the fence and some
shrubs is a corridor that is shaded most of the day and I can plant
some there, a few more under one or two trees that I planted that have
a little bit of shade (most of the trees do not having enough
branching outwards to provide shade around the base of the trees for
enough of the day) but I barely have room for them, the wintergreen
can go in any old little spot... But the pachysandra, I have no clue
where to go with it at the moment.

Can it tolerate any sun at all? I could plant it in a couple of
places where it would get sun until...oh, noon or a little after, and
then have shade the rest of the day. I am not sure that it can take
even eleven-o-clock sun here in zone 6b with our summer days which
often reach 95+.

I thought about leaving some of the more established hostas where they
are and somehow manufacturing some shade for them, maybe the patch of
spurge as well. Any ideas on doing that without making something that
is an eyesore?

I am also considering buying a 'pink cascade' weeping peach, but I
hear bad things about weeping cherries getting problems around the
graft and dying... so someone should probably talk me out of the
weeping peach.

If I can find room the nursery also has some corkscrew willows... very
lovely! I did not appreciate this tree until I saw some up close, it
would look really neat for winter.