Creating Shade

That's a good idea. It's especially helpful if you put in supportive plantings around a tree too.

It can, depending on what you plant there.

The idea is to help the tree survive as well as make it look nice in the environment. If you look around in nature, you'll see that some plants often grow together, and that there are certain niches they fill. A ring of daylilies and/or jonquils will help protect the tree from weeds and root-eating pests. Among annuals, marigolds are a good pest-repellent if you plant the old-fashioned fragrant ones rather than scentless modern ones; but they tend to want at least partial sun. Hostas are good for shading the soil and helping to keep it moist. Comfrey or yarrow are nutrient accumulators that also break up heavy clay soil with their tough roots. A nice layer of mulch helps keep the soil moist.

>>I planted some flower seeds (I don't even remember what--just that they were inexpensive and the pictures on the packets looked pretty: I can take pictures tomorrow if you like) but wasn't thinking of helping the tree, particularly--just "here's a bare spot. I like flowers. Bare spot, flowers, hmm." <<

Well, you're on the right track: a bare spot is an invitation to weeds, whose job it is to make sure the hard-earned soil doesn't blow away. Covering that is an excellent step, whatever you put there. I've always tended to garden like nature, in kind of a kitchen-sink permaculture style; not everyone does that.

>>I'm not sure I have room to put the daylillies around the baby trees, though, and the front yard is awfully afternoon-sunny and I'm not sure the daylillies would like that? <<

Here in central Illinois, daylilies like full sun to part shade. Mine are growing on the western side of our yard, so they get afternoon sun. There are also wild ones all along the roadsides. Look around you to see where daylilies prosper in your area.

>>I did mulch everything with my compost from last year which had finally turned into something resembling barkdust, though. But my compost doesn't get hot no matter what I do, so it has a lot of weed seeds in it.<<

Compost is a decent mulch if it's been baked clean of weed seeds. Otherwise it's best counted as a soil amendment, and topped with a layer of some other mulch such as shredded bark.

>>I've only been doing this gardening thing for a couple of years and I tend to be a "plant and forget; oh, flowers!" kind of person.<<

It's okay to start small and casual. I've been doing this my whole life -- my parents are into gardening too -- but I have limitations to work around, like the fact that I melt in the summer heat.

>> and this year we will have a better idea of when they might actually be ripe; watermelons are a guessing game <<

Tap them hard with your fingers. A ripe watermelon should give a hollow-sounding "thunk" sound. An unripe one will be muffled or have a higher "ping" sound. Yes, this takes practice to discern, but it does help.

>>But I don't like to do every-day things like weed, so, well, some things fight it out and make their own place and some things just kind of disappear.<<

There are ways to work with that. I can't do much weeding. So, I compensate by:

* putting things that must be weeded, such as herb gardens, close to the house where it's easy to get at them often

* planting favorite annual flowers in containers instead of the ground, which discourages weeds

* planting some things densely to crowd out weeds

* and planting a lot of perennial things such as wildflowers or berry canes that can fend for themselves once established, requiring minimal weeding or watering.

Soil amendments and mulches are also good for suppressing weeds. Most weeds are emergency patch plants, whose growth is triggered by poor soils and sunlight. Enrich and cover the soil, plant densely, and most weeds are poorly adapted for that habitat so fewer will appear. Raised beds and sheet mulching are other gardening techniques for low weeding.

>>One day I came out and it was half wilted; the next day I came out and it was dead on the ground. It was very wet that summer so maybe that was a fungus. <<

Likely so.

>>Gardening is kind of hard.<<

It can be. You have to learn what things are important to you, what you can do and what you can't do or hate doing. Then search for plants and techniques that will maximize your enjoyment while minimizing the hard parts.

For me that means I have a couple of dedicated herb gardens, some other herbs scattered around, a few dedicated places for annual flowers, and a whole lot of patches of this or that perennial flower or food item throughout the yard. There's a good-sized wildflower garden that I tend by adding new plants in spring and yanking out the worst weeds; otherwise it requires little care. The prairie garden is a big patch of grasses and weeds/wildflowers, into which I am gradually inserting more wildflowers and native grasses while trying to cut back on the less-useful or invasive plants. It gets a path mowed, but other than that, doesn't demand much attention. There are lots of berry canes and fruit trees. I've tried my hand at various vegetable gardening methods and have yet to discover a version that will live, bear acceptably, and not require more work than I can give it. So I just grow other stuff, and buy veggies at the farmer's market.

I would probably have listed the hazards: burns from overheated playground equipment, sunburn, heat stroke, increased cancer risk. Plus kids are less inclined to play in hot sun, and will hug the walls or other shade, not getting enough exercise.