First Mowing

Lawns have greened up quickly in the last week or so with the warmer weather. So I got out and mowed for the first time of the season yesterday. Although most of the lawn didn't need it yet, I mowed the front lawn anyway to mulch up some leaves from the oak that fall and gather on the lawn during the winter.

Here are some photos of the front yard (after mowing):

Most of this grass didn't need mowing

Lots of weeds

Note the patch of the dubbed "new invader" on the left (patch of lighter colored grass).

Not much growth here

Overall, not looking too great. Lots of weeds again due to thinned turf. And it seems like the new grass planted in the fall of 2011 is again being slow to green up. This lead to the fungus problems last year. I'm not about to let that happen again, so I decided to be more proactive this year and applied a generous portion of fertilizer along with a pre-emergent crabgrass application (which also contains fertilizer). I ended up putting down about 4 lbs of Endure Crabgrass Preventer Plus and about 6 lbs of Espoma Organic Lawn Food which in total comes to roughly 1.15 lbs N/1000 sq. ft. (0.475 from the Endure and 0.675 from the Espoma). I applied more liberally to the younger grass. In addition the Espoma also contains some Phosphate and Potash (8% and 6% respectively). Lots of rain is in the forecast, so we shall see how this turns out.

On to the backyard:

Still a sad sight in the backyard considering how nice it was last spring and early summer, but I have hope that I can get it back, even if I have to plant more seed this fall. It's knowing when to fertilize that's the tricky part.

In other news...

The phlox is sprouting:

I trimmed back the hydrangea tree again:

The hybrid tea rose bush is growing:

The hydrangea bushes are growing:

The Sedums are sprouting:

And it appears that the Boxwoods are doing just fine after last years drought as I see new growth on most of them (and flowering on some):

The second from the right is the most iffy.

I guess I haven't mentioned this before, but I lost one Holly bush due to the drought last summer (despite watering them). It's visible in the last two photos above (the middle Holly in the upper right of both photos). I'll have to replace it this year. I don't think I lost anything else due to the drought, thankfully.

That's all for now.

New boxwood

Sadly, one of the five boxwoods I planted last year didn't make it. And when I say it didn't make it, I really means I just forgot to water it during a dry spell and it died (and thankfully they didn't all die). In any case  I picked up a new one (from the grocery store of all places) to replace it and planted it on May 5th.

Planted
(also note the hydrangeas starting the bloom in the background)

Hopefully he likes his new family (or her...).

Lesson learned... the easy way

Yesterday I finally got started on planting the Boxwoods. After deciding about where I wanted them planted, I started digging. My intention was to plant them one by one. This would have been a mistake had I not started with the one that I did. When I started digging, I quickly found that the placement was right next to one of the in-ground sprinkler heads. This particular head is not in a good spot and needs to be moved about a foot or so closer to the grass (a project for another day, or for another person to do for me!), but I didn't want to plant it right next to it knowing that the area will have to be dug up in the future in order to move the head.

Sprinkler head in a bad place.

So, not sure what to do about that, I moved over to the next bush, started digging, then ran into a large root of the nearby tree. I thought to myself, "wow, this is going well."

A large root right where I wanted to plant.

I thought about going to get the ax, but thought that the tree may not like that so much, and started exploring other options such as planting it on either side, which required adjustments all of the other plants to maintain equal distance between them.

And this was the lesson I learned: dig all of the holes first before planting. Had I started at the other end, I probably would have planted 3 bushes before encountering this problem. Then I would have had to dig them up to fix the spacing. So, I'm very fortunate to have run into the problems when I did!

So because of the root I had two options (aside from using the ax): 1) plant it about 3 or 4 inches to the left and just in front of the root, or 2) plant it about a foot to the right. Adjusting the other plants accordingly in both cases.

I slept on it, and in the end I decided to plant it slightly to the left and just in front of the root. The Boxwood roots are just an inch two or so from the tree root, so hopefully this doesn't cause problems and the two plants can peacefully share the water and nutrients. The reason I went that way was purely aesthetics as I didn't like how it looked as much being so far to the right.

Tonight I finally planted them, digging all of the holes prior to planting. Doing this also allowed me to place each plant more precisely relative to the others. I planted them following the same instructions as I followed when planting the Holly bushes. Here is how they ended up looking:

Newly planted Boxwoods.

All together now.

Green Velvet Boxwood tag

I'm happy with it. It looks way better than how it looked with them sitting there unplanted in their pots. I think it'll be nice having some color there come winter.

Next up, I plan on planting some flowers in front of the Holly bushes. I still like the idea of having Sedum "Autumn Joy" there, so that's the plan.

Here goes nothing

Today I purchased some shrubs in continuation of our landscaping project. Three Blue Holly's for under the window and five Boxwood 'Green Velvet's for under the tree. I have decided to go out on my own and do a hybrid of the two designs. The first design had seven boxwoods under the tree and in a line toward the window, and the second had eight hostas under the tree and the three Blue Holly's under the window. I think it's a good compromise, but good design? I don't know, but this is our home and we are going to be the ones seeing it the most, so ultimately what matters is that we like it - that's how I see it anyway. My plan is to put Sedum 'Autumn Joy' in front of the holly bushes as per the second design, but beyond that the rest of the design still has yet to be finalized.

I dug up the Gayfeather and Astilbe that I planted under the tree last year (but I'm not sure where their new home will be). Then I put all of the new shrubs in their relative places to get an idea of how it will look. I have not planted them yet (that is my plan for tomorrow). Here's a shot of the Blue Holly bushes:

New Blue Holly bushes, unplanted.

Blue Holly is an interesting plant in that there are male (Blue Prince Holly) and female (Blue Princess Holly) plants and the female will only produce berries when a male is in the vicinity. The technical term for this is dioecious. I think that is fascinating. So, of course, I had to buy one of each, despite the prince not being as thick (which is apparently just how it is according to the nursery). I purchased two Princesses and one Prince; in the photo the prince is on the right. I'm hoping that those will grow and fill in the area so that the irrigation valves won't be as visible. I also purchased some ammonium sulfate to mix in the soil since they prefer the soil to be acidic (I'll use this on the Boxwoods as well, and I plan to use it to try to turn the Hydrangeas blossoms blue - can't wait to see that!). I paid full price at the nursery to get the hollys, but not so with the Boxwoods:

Fix unplanted boxwoods.

I found the Boxwoods on sale at Lowes for $10 each (which is nearly 1/5 of the cost of the nursery!). Like the Hydrangeas, I just couldn't pass that up even though I'm sure the nursery has provided much better care of them. They looked good enough to me, though.

Here's another angle of it all:

It's starting to come together (very sloooowly...)!

A landscape design

Recently, I hired a professional landscape designer to help with redoing some of the landscaping in the front yard. Visual design is not one of my strong points and since this is our home and also an investment we decided to hire some help with it.

First, I'll explain the problem. I have touched on it when I was spreading mulch and, of course, the recent landscape alteration which is really what spurred this endeavor since a large area was wiped clean of all vegetation. Much of the shrubs on the South and South-East corner of our house are old and overgrown - they just don't look very good and for a while I have been thinking about what I could do to about it. Ultimately, I think the best thing solution is to replace them, but with what? And so, here we are.

This is the design (click to enlarge):

Landscape design

And the list of the new plants with links to an image search for visuals of them:

• Crimson Pygmy Barberry
• Boxwood 'Green Velvet'
• Hydrangea 'Endless Summer'
• Bottlebrush Buckeye
• Dogwood
• Japanese Anemone
• Blackeyed Susans
• Cranesbill 'Rozanne'
• Liatris 'Kobold'
• Sedum 'Angelina'

Overall, the design is a lot more plant-y than I was expecting. I thought it would blend better with the existing landscaping, but it seems quite different. In general, I like it, but I'm also hesitant.

I really like the hydrangeas around the corner of the house. I also think that the Blackeyed Susans would be really nice as well as the other plants in that area: Cranesbill, Japanese Anemone, and Bottlebrush Buckeye.

What I'm most unsure about is the line of Boxwoods under the tree. I have a hard time envisioning it, but it just seems too linear and similar to the bushes we have now. I think I'll have to see if I can get an alternative idea for that area - perhaps just having fewer of them and more separated?

Of course nothing is set in stone yet and I'm sure they can give me some other options for some of the plants. I'm very anxious to get started on this project, but I also don't want to rush it.