In the backyard if you take out the tall evergreens and you could put a redbud in it's place and make a bed with perennials and flowering decidiuous shrubs enclosing what she has there now accentuating the rock. You can mix formal with informal. Dwarf flowering shrubs like spirea, potentilla, etc. The front entrance is a problem not a lot of room to work with so maybe some dwarf azaleas or Eunonymous Emerald Gaiety that has colorful leaves year round to brighten and soften the dark area.

Here is a link that might be useful: Propagating Perennials

There are several books available to showcase Japanese style gardening if she needs pictures.

The shrubs by the front are a bit imposing for that small space and they take up all the room. Taking those out would allow for a lot more creativity and diversity in form and color. There are shrubs and plants that do fine in shade, but it sounds like most of the area gets sun which gives you a ton of choices.

I always try to remember to spend most of my effort (and money) on the area that I see the most. Would that be the backyard for her?

This probably is not the answer you would like to hear.

Why are you going through all this?

Either she has been nudging and pushing at you to relandscape the yard but remains undecided about details and decisions....

Or she is pretty much happy with things as they are, and she has been trying to be 'well, maybe' open, and 'that sounds lovely, dear' stuff, and 'putting you off' chatty, and quietly resistant, to your ideas of how things should be changed. Just really wants things to remain same...

>Please, can anyone help jog some creativity into this disaster? Or at least help convince her that I'm not entirely wrong on some choices? ;DWhose garden is it? Is just a 'let things be as they are' approach something you can do?

And she can put out the plant stands with the impatiens she can manage, and enjoy the landscape she has known.....

Thank you all for your suggestions so far, having a visual connection to designs and groupings will help much more than "This plant is okay and has green leaves, and that one is short with flowers" and they're all scattered around the nursery. :)

Linda (I'm assuming, please correct me if I'm wrong though. :) ) - I'd like to help. I do the gardening at my house, and help her with hers (for extra plant and mulch money, usually). It's just not as much of a hobby for her as it is for me, although that's largely due to time and physical issues.
I have my gardens at my home, but she's just inherited the house she's been living in. My grandmother hasn't been home since last June.
The current landscaping is 'developer landscaping' and original to the house itself, or or haphazard plantings from my grandfather. The house is near twenty years and it's time for a change. If not simply a visual one, their health is declining and it won't last given the spaces they're planted in.

Overall, she's tired of it. :) It's not her style, but it's been so long she's been taking care of my grandmother in Her house, she hasn't been able to explore any of her own choices in over a decade, and I think she's just rusty.

For the interiors of the house there's the ever-present home design shows, plus catalogs and store displays.
Those are much harder to run across for outdoor spaces, barring 'backyard living room' setups.

It's been a mutual effort, and I've thought software might help me set up some pictures for her, but I've no experience with them. Wouldn't know what to get, what to avoid, or even if it'd be worth it.

*sigh* So. A lot of text for something so basic. :) I can't explain things well to her, I tend to go off into descriptions she doesn't follow, or use terms she doesn't know, and confusion abounds! I am simply not good at the communication part.

On that note: I hope to be spending some more time over there through the weekend, and sitting on the computer with her. Yay!! ^_^;

The Southeast corner of the back yard might just need a small adjustment. Looked around at arborvitae how-to's - what to do, what not to do and drew my own conclusion that you've got nothing to lose by topping these.

If arborvitae can be sheared into hedges, lopping them off at the point where they start to get concave then doing a little hand clipping to soften out the cut area until new leaders (and it will likely result in multiple new leaders) start to grow might spare you from having them taken out. There are some wayward branches that can be pruned back and any leaning multiple stems can be tied up with something flexible like the roping made from cutting panty hose down the leg on the bias. Arborvitae always have a lot of crispy brown dead material in the interior - that's just the way they are. I poke a rake in mine and give them a good shake and most of it drops creating better airspace.

Take the eagle off the rock - perched on a globe set on a globe beside five(?) more globes. Use the rock as a backdrop for a few perennials or colorful annuals. If possible, take out a couple or three of the starkly sheared globes and replace with one of the more dwarf, pyramidal types of conifers and a slow, low growing type like a Bird's Nest Spruce. Failing that, take them all out and replace with a Japanese Maple or a flowering ornamental.

The front, I don't know. A little less shaped up green replaced with some color. The little "V" of grass between the walk and drive could be taken up for a couple more square feet to work with. Maybe an outing to a greenhouse or garden center and seeing the array of things available will get the creative juices flowing.

Silverwind, I'm very much with Linda in what questions arise in my mind as I read your questions. Landscaping-wise, the whole thing is really a no-brainer; any one of us on this list could make more of that yard than there is, and so could you, without the help of the list. Your mom could probably even do it, given a free hand to pursue her own preferences. I think this is less about landscaping than about a whole bunch of relationships between people, and between people and properties.

Your mother may be caught up in rather mixed emotions at the moment. We're all a little more cavalier about our grandparents passing on since we always know they are old and will do so eventually, but this was her mother and she may be reluctant to swing into enthusiastic re-landscaping as if released from bondage - even if she has been. Or maybe the plants, for her, are connected to her parents in a good way. Whatever, this isn't just about the plants. And, to run the risk of speaking very frankly, if she has been just released from being dominated by her mother, the last thing she needs now is to be dominated by her daughter.

I also see a problem in the concept of you doing garden work for your mom - if she were hiring someone else, she could tell them exactly what to do, and if you were doing it as a favour, you could demand a little more creative freedom in the work. But neither is the case, as I'm guessing you're working for cheap, and whenever you mix roles like that you run the risk of various boundaries being crossed.

The flip side of this is that she cannot expect you to do her gardening in a setting you do not like. You should feel free to simply opt out if maintaining the existing plantings is what she wants done. In order to do favours (such as work for cheap or free) you have to enjoy what you're doing. What I would suggest as a way to maintain both your sanities is to ask her to let you "garden up" a corner of the yard other than these spots that bother you. Seeing what you do might spark her to take action on things in the areas you leave to her.

One of the most important aspects of decision-making that is often overlooked is the issue of timing. If your mother is just not ready to let those plants go, or make a decision about how to replace them, that cannot be changed. To push her will generate some sort of negative outcome; either she'll change her mind just when you're happy, or blame you if the outcome isn't what she wants, or something else. I wouldn't push - you'll pay later if you win.

You likely will continue to discuss landscaping with her, however, and if your mom is the age I figure she might be, she might be much happier with books than with a computer. But honestly, I find that the yard itself and a few visits to a nursery get the creative and decision-making juices flowing much better than looking at other settings. Not everyone can move ideas around from context to context.

KarinL

Hi, Silverwind.
Thanks for the extra info. A *real* suggestion is below, but there's just one more thing to think about re emotional stuff. And KarinL made some really good points.

>I have my gardens at my home, but she's just inherited the house she's been living in. My grandmother hasn't been home since last June.Sounds like your grandmother is not dead, but is in a nursing facility? It may be that your mom feels a little discomfort in making big changes to "her mom's" place yet? If she has been delaying on changing the inside of the house, this might be part of the problem. If she is fine with changing the inside, then her hesitancy in changing the outside may just be that she is a little overwhelmed.

KarinL may have the right idea, of taking a small area at a time. You can keep an overall plan in your head, but your mom may not be ready for the big view.

Think gardening magazines.... A wide range of them. Everything from the simple to the serious. Let her look at all the pictures of all the gardens, and mark the bits she likes or doesn't. You won't be able to 'recreate' the pictures, of course. But it might help focus your discussions, and might help her and you focus in on just what it is she likes about certain pictures. Then you can see if you can get similar shapes or groupings or textures or whatever with plants that can work.

But do keep KarinL's comments in mind, too....

If your mom is fine with and moving ahead on changes to the inside of the house, and you are helping with that too, then the outside project will come together. Possibly not as quickly as you and the planting-season-timing would like.

If not, then there may be other issues happening. Be patient.