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...)!

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.

Landscape alteration

A few days ago our landscape was altered. We didn't have a choice in the matter. The creek in our backyard was eroding its banks and threatening to invade people's property so they hired a company to place large stones at select bends in the creek to help slow the erosion, and it so happens that one of those places was right next to hour house. I can't complain too much because I don't want the creek any closer to our home, but I could have done without the means of getting the stones back there, which involved cutting through the brush on the south side of our house.

I happened to have a photo that I took a few days before they did this, so I could do a before and after to show the extent of the change:

Before & After

Now, this side of the house I have more or less left alone since we moved in. The brush from the forest was overgrown and the bushes next to the house were as well, so I figured it was a good match and left it that way until I had the time and energy to take on that project. But now the project is semi-forced upon me, or at least I'm seeing it as an opportunity to take it on since it is now pretty much a clean slate over there.

Yesterday I dug up some of the landscaping bricks that were over there (most of them were completely buried and in some cases jammed between roots that had grown around them) and am planning on using the rest of the remaining mulch to just mulch that whole area. Then, I'll have another area to put some more plants - yay! Here's my plan:

That area gets a decent amount of morning sun, especially with much of the surrounding brush removed. Unfortunately, there's a stump and a whole bunch of roots there, too. I'm going to try to dig it up, but I might not be able to - we'll see.

So, this will be my new project and will allow me to finally get the mulch pile off of our driveway.

2009

I haven't done much since we moved in. I really only trimmed the bushes up as best I could until the fall of 2009 when I won a silent auction for about $200 worth of plants and some manual labor. This was the first semi-major work done, granted I didn't do any of it. First of all, we had the extremely large and overgrown burning bush removed and replaced with a much smaller Kyushu Hydrangea Tree. In addition, we had the two "prickly bushes" (maybe Barberry?) on both sides of the garage replaced with two rose bushes (forget what type). Other than that, we had some other flowering plants planted in other parts of the yard. In the backyard along the deck, we had some Lily Turf (I think) planted. In the front yard, we had a handful of different varieties - all perennials, but I didn't pay close enough attention at the time to remember what they were. I'll have to figure them out some day. However, some of them didn't make it the next year, probably due to my lack of properly caring for them. It also could have been the soil they were planted in as I noticed when later replanting in 2010 that roughly 4-6 inches below the soil is clay.