The other day, I was talking to our neighbor in the back, and she said "Your flowers are coming in really nicely."
"Um, thanks," I said, "but I sort of think those might technically be weeds..."
They are pretty, though:
Close-up below the fold:
Of course, even if they are weeds, I can't really complain, because the adjacent area of the yard looks like this:
One of these days, I'll probably end up paying somebody a great deal of money to make grass grow here. For the moment, though, scattering seed underneath the gigantic oak tree whose trunk is seen in that picture is my annual quixotic yard work gesture. I usually get scattered tufts of grass by the end of the summer, that almost start to look like a lawn, before the vast quantities of leaves and acorns dropped by the tree kill everything off.
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no, Chad, not weeds. Those are squills (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Squill)
In conditions they like they will self-seed and naturalize, but they were probably planted there at some point. (Unsolicited advice: in the shade of a tree like your oak, a garden of shade-tolerant perennials would be more cost-effective and less work in the long run than lawn.)
If you are growing corn, then roses in the field are weeds.
Yep, there are a ton of shady plants (imagining a plant lurking around the corner in a trenchcoat, probably up to no good) - many of 'em that have evolved to deal with deciduous shade by popping up and blooming before the trees leaf out (as the your oak has yet to do in the photo) as well as many others that simply tolerate or require shade. Browse your bookstore's gardening section - or if you simply want to see something growing under there, you could {sighs, hangs head} go with, for example, hostas and astilbes. . . .
{Brightening up} If, though, by any chance, you might be interested in native plants, you could leaf through Ken Druse's The Natural Shade Garden, Rick Darke's (ha!) The American Woodland Garden, William Cullina's The New England Wild Flower Society Guide to Growing and Propagating Wildflowers of the United States and Canada, or any good field guide for your area.
Possibilities include blue or creeping phlox, bloodroot, bleeding heart, dutchman's breeches, virginia bluebells, wild ginger, trout lily, mayapple, jacob's ladder, solomon's seal, foamflower, alumroot/coralbells . . .
We gave up trying to grow grass under our maples and dogwoods, and just keep them mulched in the dead zone. It looks good, keeps the weeds at bay, and is fairly low maintenance. Ideally though, if you really want grass there, you wait till fall and seed the whole area just before the leaves coat the yard. Don't rake your yard. Leave the leaves in place. They'll decompose over the winter, providing nutrients to the soil while protecting your seeds through the winter from wind and rain.
A weed is just a plant you don't want - embrace your squills and it's a garden coming along nicely.
I'll second Chris's and Dan's comments. There are shade tolerant grasses that work in our climate, but you appear to be in a zone where they would not survive. Ground covers should be selected from ones that are not invasive. Your area may have an extension office (from a state ag school) or a master gardener program. In addition, some nurserys now specialize in more natural approaches to gardening.
You also have to watch watering needs. The tree is taking most of the moisture, which is why mulching its leaves inside its drip zone is a good tactic if grass won't grow, and may help the grass nearby. That area will also have different fertilizer needs (often *not* high N sold to the mass green-grass market).