I love what you are doing with the area where the spruce died. I, too, have a dying spruce. In fact, it won't be too many years and we will lose quite a few large trees. I dread this because my favorite gardening is shade gardening. Hostas are my passion, as daylilies are yours. I really love your woodland garden! I'm trying to create paths that lead to a view. One of my paths goes between two large evergreen trees with a chippy pergola that my husband built almost twenty years ago for our daughter's wedding held in the yard. It wasn't chippy then! Makes a nice frame for hostas and ferns though, haha.
