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.

Blue Hollies planted

Last weekend I planted the Blue Holly bushes (yes, I am behind!):

Blue Holly bushes planted

I really struggled with the placement if them as I wanted to block as much of the irrigation valves as possible, but also I wanted it to look orderly. It seemed like the bushes should line up with the window, so that's what I ended up doing (approximately) and I'm hoping that the bushes will grow and fill in more. They still seem kinda crammed in there, but it works for me.

I followed the instructions given by the nursery for planting them. In a nutshell they are:

1. Dig a hole 2-3 times the width and no deeper than the root ball with the edges sloping downward
2. Remove any girdling roots, which are roots that circle the plant instead of spreading out radially from the plant (these can eventually choke the plant)
3. Create a mixture of 2/3 original soil and 1/3 peat moss
4. Place the plant in the center and fill in with the soil
5. Use water to settle the soil around the plant
6. Mulch 2-4 inches with hardwood bark mulch
7. Water thoroughly

I didn't end up mixing in the ammonium sulfate with the soil, but I did mix in peat humus and topsoil like I did with the Hydrangeas.

They are still alive after one week, so that's good. With the heat and drought conditions that we've had lately, I've watered them a few times with the hose on a trickle at the base of the plant.

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...)!

Landscaping progress

This weekend I continued work on our little landscape redo. With the hydrangeas planted, I was thinking that I would rip out the overgrown bush in front of the window and possibly plant some blue holly bushes. I didn't quite get to the bush purchasing/planting, however, I did rip out the existing bushes, making for a very clean slate look to our landscape.

Old bushes removed

Here's a shot that shows what it looked like earlier this year:

Before: a view from May of this year

At the time I was considering removing these very bushes.

After that I teetered on going out to purchase the holly bushes as per the design, however, I decided to hold off for now as I'm just not sure about the holly bush idea. The biggest concern I have is the limited space in the area because Blue Holly bushes can grow to over 10 feet tall (if not pruned)! An about.com page on the bush states:

"While it's possible for Blue Princess and Blue Prince holly to top 12' in height at maturity, these shrubs, even with just minimal pruning, are easily kept at a fraction of that height."

So perhaps that fact isn't too big of a deal, but also while browsing at the store one day I noticed that it said to plant them at least 5 feet apart! There is no way I could do that - 3 feet at most, maybe. This random Q&A posting also confirms my fear:

"I planted a blue holly several years ago and now realize that it is too big for the location. I don't want to spend the rest of my days severely pruning this plant back, just to keep it inbounds."

I think I may ask the designer to see what he has to say about this.

So, I decided to move on to something else instead, but I wasn't sure what. The design isn't quite final in my mind, particularly for the front of the house, so I have been struggling with trying to get it to a more finalized state. I decided that it would be helpful for my very visual-aided brain to have the brick edging in place, so I went to work on that and ended up with this:

Brick edging in place

Unfortunately, I was so exhausted from doing this that I never went back to see if that actually helped me visualize anything. I'll have to save that for another day.

It begins

This weekend I started work on redoing the landscaping in the front yard after getting two designs (well, really just one with a second opinion). I started with what I was most confident in: the hydrangeas. I began by ripping up the existing bushes, then went shopping for 3 more "Endless Summer" Hydrangea plants. I ended up buying them from Home Depot instead of a local nursery to save money - they were 3 times as much at the nursery (granted they were larger, but still) - I hope I don't regret that. The only problem was that they didn't have any blue-colored ones for some reason, but I bought them anyway knowing that the colors are dependent on the acidity of the soil and can always be adjusted (in theory). This is how it ended up:

Newly planted hydrangeas.

I also purchased some bags of peat humus and top soil to plant them with:

Peat Humus and Top Soil

I think they look pretty good and will look even better once they grow larger, I hope.

I think next I'll remove the overgrown bushes in front of the window and plant holly bushes. I think....

Another opinion

This week I got another opinion on the design. It was cheap - he literally just drew over the other design with his ideas. He had some good ideas and it was more or less what I was after. Here are his annotations:

Design 2

These are his comments from top left to bottom right (roughly):

1. In place of the Bottlebrush Buckeye, he suggested Burkwood Viburnum or a Burning Bush because he didn't think there'd be enough light.
2. Same for Japanese Anemone for which he suggested pink Astilbe instead (labeled "1").
3. He wasn't thrilled about the Dogwood tree, and instead suggested a Rosebud Tree.
4. He agree with heavily trimming up the existing viburnum.
5. He was unsure about the Blackeyed Susans (labeled "2") getting enough light. Instead he suggested Gayfeather.
6. Likewise with the Cransebill 'Rozanne' (labeled "3") in place of which he suggested Stella Daylily.
7. He agreed with getting rid of the existing spirea bush (replacing with endless summer hydrangea).
8. He suggested putting the hydrandea bushes around the corner and to not have the one out away from the house (he 'X'ed it out in the design). I agree.
9. In front of the hydrangeas (labeled "4"), he suggested planting white Astilbe (7). He said it would in with the pink Astilbe. I like it.
10. In front of those around the curve (labeled "5"), he suggested planting 8 hostas. I'm not sure I like this idea. And I'm also a little concerned with the area under the tree not having much winter interest.
11. He didn't like the idea of the Liatris 'Kobold' in front of the window (labeled "A", previously "4") and instead suggested planting 3 Blue Holly bushes (which actually was what was there before I ripped them up earlier this year).
12. In front of those (labeled "2/7"), he suggested either Stella D'ora Daylily or Sedum 'Autumn Joy'.
13. In front of those (labeled "6"), he suggested Myrtle Vinca ground-cover. I'm tot sure about this.
14. And finally, an alternative to the the barberry is a single bush of either Globe Blue Spruce or Euonymos along with "summer color" annuals (labled "B"). Euonymos is what is on the other side of the sidewalk so that would tie into those, so I'm leaning in that direction.

And that's it. I wish I could have had a completely fresh design instead of just modifying the existing one, but it was one of the ways that I was able to get it for cheaper - I got what I paid for, I suppose.

I still don't feel 100% confident in everything, but I do think it's closer to what I had in mind, so I think the rest is up to me. What I feel the most confident about is the Hydrangeas, so I think this weekend I'll get to work on removing the existing bush on the corner and plant some Hydrangeas (I still have the potted one that my mom gave me)!

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.