started backyard and clueless...help needed!
dnsource
12 years ago
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WowMyLandscape.com
12 years agoRelated Discussions
Starting from Scratch Backyard Landscaping Help
Comments (10)Ideally, it's great to have an overall plan, healthy budget and do all your hardscaping first. However many of us have to rely on an overall idea of what we want, limited budget and DIY :) If you can afford it, I would recommend fencing in your right side and back, so you can create your own private area. This will minimize damage from dogs and other neighbor issues...and give you some screening for that vegetable garden. If you like shrubs that bloom, it might be nice to have taller ones against the fence and shorter ones closer to the yard. You might even be able to add some bulbs for spring color, that will grow up through the mulch. If you don't want too many, even a corner or two with daffodils that have naturalized can be very pretty. Do you want a more formal layout (rectangular) or more informal, with a few curves and rounded inside corners? Do you plan to have any shrub roses? They are beautiful and often very fragrant...and can even have few or no thorns. Many old-fashioned roses need very minimal care and bloom for four to six weeks. We have many in eastern Washington (cold winters/hot summers) and they do very nicely, even with the cold and snow. The nice thing about shrub roses is that they look so good with butterfly bushes, clumps of lavender, spirea, forsythia, pontillia, catmint, etc. If you do decide to use lavender, munstead is a nice gray/lavender and grows fairly large...Hidcote stays smaller and is more blue/purple. Both do well with our cold winters and don't mind the extra water that Mediterranean lavenders dislike. Have fun with your garden! :) Hidcote lavender... From Lavender's Garden Celsiana shrub rose (wonderful rose that changes from pink to almost white) with (I believe) Excellenz von Schubert rose (smaller pink in background) daisies about to bloom under Celisana, Salvia (dark purple) and Hidcote lavender (lighter purple).... From Lavender's Garden This post was edited by lavender_lass on Fri, Dec 20, 13 at 14:46...See MoreStarting a backyard nursery
Comments (81)Thankyou Mylu for the comments. Yes I do have parking, off street on the road, and an extra two space pad on my driveway. It is tight but doable. From my driveway it is easy to load. I know the open only two days a week is not good, but it is the best I can do for now. Can't give up any more of the day jobs just yet. I have begun to stress that I will make afternoon appointments any day of the week. I cringe at the cost of major advertising. I have been doing classified and made a web site ( free with my DSL and bought a Domain name to direct traffic there ) and put the address in the ad. Then of course there are the business cards and flyers that I have put in some of the local stores that allow that. It isn't news to me, but I have been amazed at how lazy some people are. I live on what amounts to a flag lot on a hill,so you cannot see the nursery from the road. People will find the place and not come down the drive. I have made the upper bed and the drive as attractive as possible to help. Eventually I would like to move to a more suitable business location. I know I am offering people something they do not get elsewhere here, which is knowledge and attention. Once they find me they always come back for more. The cost of land on Maui is astronomical and rising by the second since we have become one of the second home capitols for the rich. In the meantime this is a good place to be for the learning curve and to develope the business. ilima...See MoreThe Great Backyard Bird Count Starts 2/17
Comments (1)Thanks for posting this. I'm going to try to participate this year :-)...See MoreStarting backyard from scratch
Comments (10)It turns out that there are conventional ways of doing things because there are reasons to do them that way. It doesn't mean that one can't do them another way, but they may suffer some inconvenience, or it may cost more money or deliver some other such penalty. As a bathroom would typically be near a bedroom, an outdoor lounge area (patio/gazebo/pavilion, etc.) would be located very near the back entrance to a home. It is this way in the vast majority, probably well over 95%, of instances. Likely, it would serve you well to do something similar. You COULD have a covered lounge area that is perched next to the slope for special and dramatic effect. But I doubt it would serve well as the MAIN outdoor family lounge area. It would be too inconveniently distant for everyday use. And it would also risk being a view blocker for whatever lounge area was near the house, or from the inside the house. It could possibly be a secondary lounge area, but we are into the "more money" thing now. It looks like your house would easily accommodate an attached, covered structure. If you didn't want the house interior darkened by doing this, it would be fine to make it freestanding and set it a short bit away from the house. The sun is 93 million miles away. One's view of it would not improve in the slightest if one were twenty or a thousand miles closer to it. If they can reasonably see it, that's pretty much sufficient. You have a distant view that might range from 1/4 to 3 miles away and it isn't the least necessary to get 50' closer to it in order to enjoy it. If you were across the yard, next to the slope, it wouldn't necessarily help the view. It would, though, erase from view all that was behind you, possibly making it feel more like you are on an "outing." While it's fine to ask for general ideas about what we would do, it's not going to be as useful to you as if you start giving input about what you're trying to achieve. Then "what we would do" within those parameters might be more relevant. In addition to thinking about the overall feeling and character you're trying to achieve, I'd revisit the list of elements-to-be-included. Is there more than patio/pavilion and turf? Will there be play or recreation equipment or facilities? Tree shade? Boat storage? Garden? Whatever it is that might appear later, this would be the time to consider planning for it. How much screening from neighbors is going to be needed? I commend you for creating a base plan. It will be extremely helpful to you as you work through the issues. And it helps us understand your issues....See Morednsource
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