So I bought a home it's on 4 acres. The woods are a mess. I would like to put if possible something that stays pretty and is full maybe tall in a line in front of the trees? Any help would be great. Also I would maybe like to add ground covers under the trees, in the fall there are a ton of leave that fall if this helps. I know nothing about gardens or flowers nothing so please help

What do you mean "the woods are a mess"? Fallen trees? Overgrowth? Or something else?
Unless you want to have your area taken over by invasive weeds, leave the fallen leaves where they are and resist the temptation to plant any "quick ground cover". You are better off doing some light woodland management if you really want to do something about it.

If you want to provide a screen for the house there are tons of hedging bushes to pick from: you need to pick what effect you want to achieve before however. A continuous cover (perhaps with room for a gate to access the woods)? Separate bushes providing continuous flowering? A more natural effect?
If you contact a landscape contractors, go through the options provided with a fine comb: most of them try to push the same hedges that will become a costly nightmare to keep in shape (Cherry laurel) or will become invasive (Pyracantha) or will have the invariable few dead plants in a couple of years (Leyland cypress).

You can't clean the woods! The woods survive all on their own. If you are brand new to gardening, you will have more then enough work maintaining the area around your home.
Meanwhile walk the woods, explore for wildflowers and wildlife. The woods have an ecosystem of their own. We can't improve on that. The falling branches, sticks and leaves are natures recycling.
My parents moved to NC in 1982. My Mom tried to clean a half acre of woods. She gave up quickly. A landscaped 1/4 acre more then kept her busy.

and congratulations on your purchase, I'd love to have some woods of my own.

Will you be hiring someone to do this, or doing yourself?

As you suggested, you might plant some shrubs or flowerbeds along the far edge of your lawn (?) for more landscaped look. Do you have some lawn? You need to plant a little ways away from the tree edge so they can have sun and not too many tree roots to fight.

This is maybe the messiest time of year for the woods, or most ;dead; looking as you have all the fall leaves and bare branches.

There isn't much of appropriate groundcover for under trees. I wouldn't try fighting the forest anyway, that's too much of a fight. But I could see a strip about 3 feet wide planted with wildflowers and or shrubs with berries for birds, and a gate in it would be a very nice touch, as suggested. And plan for several feet between your flowerbed and the woods, that you could have mowed or otherwise keep the woods from invading your planting.

shrubs with flowers and berries can be pretty for a lot of the year and also help bring the songbirds out for you. Many flowers also help birds as well as insects. If you do perennial flowers, you will want to mulch well around them to keep other stuff from growing up right away.

There are plants that do well in the woods, but I'm not familiar with MI climate. Some I knew well in OH:


Maianthemums (Maianthemum)
https://garden.org/plants/sear...
Eastern Red Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis)
https://garden.org/plants/sear...
Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia)

Like Bill said, the woods do their own thing. I've never had the pleasure of having such an area to garden, but imagine it would be difficult to try to introduce plants because they seem to form patches in particular spots that are really to their liking. It would be best to stick with native plants.

My recommendation for new gardeners is always to go inside and look out of the windows. The spots you see from the windows are where you will get your greatest enjoyment from ornamental plants. Then branch out into other areas that you have to go outside to see.

Yes purpleinopp that is exactly what I'm waiting to do. These are the woods I have one flower bed in finishing but would love something just like that for under the trees thank all of you I have alot of home work to do..

Lovely spot, I wish you the best!

This was me in 2012. Here are some things I learned, mostly after the fact:

-Sun position is important. Getting familiar with the shady areas, the morning sun areas, the full sun areas, will help you make decisions. Remember that sun hangs low in the southern sky in the winter and then gradually rises to directly overhead in the spring and summer. I have a hillside on the northern side where I plant lots of spring bulbs, for example -- the sun warms it first and I want that springtime burst of color as early as possible.

-Second thing is soil moisture. Our property has a dozen or so microclimates because it's hilly, wooded on all four sides with 'yard' in the middle. So that's a consideration.

If you're looking for general recommendations I love Nanking cherry (flowers very early here, before anything except our star magnolia). Currants are great in part shade. Mountain laurel is native here and accepting of dry shade. Rhododendrons accept part shade. Grasses look nice from your window in the wintertime. So do red twig dogwood.

I don't know about Michigan though - we have acid, mostly infertile soil. If you're on a flat riverbed you have a lot more options!

Lastly, consider deer pressure: deer will eat arborvitae and holly but mostly leave our junipers alone, so I hit the Juniper Button often.

Hope this helps! It's daunting at first but less so over time. Keep a journal of successes and failures -- it's really confidence building to see yourself try, fail, grow, and then really learn about the land you're on.

Start with what you can see from windows or will see when you pull in the drive.

Your best move would be to contact Michigan's Private Forestland Program.

https://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0...

At the minimum, they should be able to tell you just how much of a "mess" your woods really are, which plants are desirable, which are undesirable, and some suggestions about how to manage them.

At best, they may be able to provide considerable resources towards taking care of them.

That's not much work, honestly. A good brushcutter with a metal blade and a carbide saw and perhaps a smaller pro-grade chainsaw will see it cleaned quickly.

ElPolloDiablo said:That's not much work, honestly. A good brushcutter with a metal blade and a carbide saw and perhaps a smaller pro-grade chainsaw will see it cleaned quickly.

Who I've never heard of a brushcutter till now! Definitely have to purchase that!!! Thank you!!