Advice on plantings for coastal Maine garden renovation? (pics)

14 years ago

Hi, I posted this on Landscape Design as well, but thought you might have good shrub ideas here!

I am about to start buying plants for a revamped foundation planting for our Maine home. We've removed all the overgrown shrubs and a decrepit old deck, dumped 5 yards of compost, and are ready to start buying plants. Hoping for your input!

Review:

house is in Maine, will be shingled and painted in light beigey-grey, sort of a coastal cottage look. We removed a large deck off the bedroom french doors, and instead it will have a simple railing across it ("juliette balcony"). Garage will have trellis with clematis.

Objectives:

1) Make front door more prominent (currently it is visually lost and unused). To that end, the recessed doorway area will be sided in a different material, and an informal flagstone walkway will lead up the hill to the main road. (Family uses side door, which is next to the garage door in the lower left.)

2) Low budget (aprox $1000) and low maintenance plantings.

3) All season interest re: spring flowering trees, summer grasses and perennials, fall foliage and fruit, fruit and red bark and shapes in winter.

4) Would love some edible landscaping to compliment backyard organic garden and fruit.. re: hybrid blueberry bushes.

5) Would love something with summer (sometime in june/July/Aug?) fragrance near the bedroom french doors.

6) Spring bulbs and something frangrant near the family entrance lower left (new porch to be built). Also- the oil fill is at the far right of that porch, behind the proposed crabapple.

So far, we're fairly set on using:

small magnolia on the SE corner as shown, Ann, Jane, Ricki, or one similar.

small crabapple on S corner. Local nurseries have recommended 'Tina'

hydrangeas x2, have existing to replant. Annabelle, Endless Summer type. I like the winter interest of the canes...

peonies, have about 6 or 8, after dividing existing, mature plants.

and the rest of the list, which so far do not have set locations, is:

Evergreen: fairly open, natural, narrow, not more than 8' H.. possibly Falce Cypresses like Gracilis, Filicoides...

Fothergilla

Blueberry- hybrid types 3-4' high

Winterberry

Arctic Fire Dogwood

Cotoneaster and/or Bearberry underplanting the crabapple and/or magnolia

Cranesbill Geranium

Nepeta

Globe Allium

Spring bulbs

Tall grasses for initial height and winter interest

Here is a sketch of the house as seen from the corner of the two streets, BARE- no plantings.

{{gwi:20637}}

QUESTIONS

1) What should go in that corner where the two arms of the house meet? I do not want to block the window, so it would need be about 4' wide. I feel like it needs something with a little height there, no? Evergreen? Other?

2) What should flank the front entry? Two shrubs of the same type? About 3-4' high? I was thinking small winterberry for the great red winter berries, but maybe they're too bland the rest of the year? I don't want it super formal... it should be casual, coastal, natural but also somewhat neat.

3) Recommendations for frangrant things next to the side door porch and the bedroom french doors?

4) Recommendations of which to plant where, heights, etc?

Here's the plan I am working with right now... open to changes!!

{{gwi:20638}}

and a sketch with some of the above plants drawn in at near-mature size.

{{gwi:20639}}

Thanks for your comments :)

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Comments (4)

thisismelissa
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
In that corner, where a tall juniper is specified, what about a Skyrocket? My neighbor has 4 on the NE side of their house (we're zone 4 here) and they do great!

Flanking the front entry, would you consider a couple of tallish urns? Plant them with seasonal interest and I think it'd be great!

I'm not sure about that magnolia. Here, the bloom is short lived and the foliage is sparse thereafter. What about echoing the tree-form Crab with possibly a lilac tree-form, like Miss Kim? Or, since you want fragrance next to the porch, do the lilac TREE over there and bring the crab to the other corner.

I just took a garden design workshop on Saturday. And what they'd have told me about this plan is that it's a bit mish-mash. For greater impact, you'd be best to group the individual plantings.... ie... 3 hydrangeas together under a window....
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alyciaadamo
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Try some dwarf lilacs- Syringa 'Bailsugar' (Sugar Plum Fairy), Syringa 'Bailming'(Prince Charming), Syringa 'Baillina' (Thumbalina), Syringa 'Bailbelle'(Tinkerbelle) They are from Bailey nurseries but if I can get them up here in Northern Maine I am sure you can get them. The height 5-6' and width 4-5' but they can be pruned. What caught my eye last year was (the tinkerbelle anyway) bloomed a second time in Sept.! The smell was awesome, just the one plant made my whole yard smell(it only had a few blooms as well). If you want something that looks good all four seasons try a red twigged dogwood with a variegated leaf like Ivory Halo Dogwood(Cornus Alba Bailhalo) or the larger version cornus alba elegantissima. The one thing I heard about though with the Ivory Halo was the leaves are prone to leaf spot(in the fall the leaves get black) I have 2 but this will be my first summer with them.
How about a ninebark. I have a Diablo(height 6-10' width4-6') it has dark leaves all spring-fall then after the leaves fall the bark looks really neat. The bark is said to shed 9 times a year hence the name(that's what I was told anyway) but they have other types that are just as pretty-I think Coppertina, Darts Gold and Center Glow are a few.
A smaller but really pretty bush is Clethra alnifolia they have 2 colors white(hummingbird summersweet) and pink(ruby spice) . I think the Hummingbird only gets to about 3-4' wide. Sixteen Candles and ruby spice gets bigger.

Another bush is the Regent Saskatoon Serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia 'Regent')they get height4-6' width 4-8' they are green but are supposed to be covered in white blooms in spring. They have edible berries that I was told taste a little like apple. Another bush I acquired only last year. So far they seem fine but they only just budding here now in The County.

If you are looking for more info on blueberries you can ask local farms. I don't know where you are but I know every county has some sort of website to the major local farms.

http://www.pickyourown.org/ME.htm

I also know that the coast has different growing zones than from inland. When I lived in K-port things grew very differently than N. Berwick.(I know one is more southern than the other but I can only compare where I have lived :)

Good luck I hope I helped a fellow Mainer.
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I like your selection of plants, but your drawing indicates that everything is going to be planted like a skirt around the house. I'm wondering if they are so packed in that some of the beauty of the plantings may be lost, and that you might not be able to even see the house. This format may be de rigeur for foundation plantings, but I am not a fan of them, and would like to elaborate on what Ken was saying. I manage property for a living, and over time, have removed many of the foundation plantings from the properties I manage. People plant shrubs and trees that are cute little things from the nursery with no regard to the fact that they can grow huge at mature size. Over the years they become difficult to maintain and the homeowner is enslaved in a battle of hedge clippers vs. foundation plantings. Inevitably, they have to be removed. Foundation plantings also encourage rodent and insect pests, harbor moisture against the house, encourage the growth of mildew, and rot out trim and siding. Houses need to breathe. The homeowner needs room around the house for misc. maintenance and a place to put the hose. When the house needs a new roof or paint job, workers need places set up their equipment, throw the shingles, and tromp around the house. General rules of thumb: no vegetation should be touching the house. No vines growing on house. 2 feet minimum between side of house and branches at mature size. 10 feet between roof and tree branches. Personally I don't care if you can see my foundation. There are a few standard shrubs around the house, but mostly I use dwarf shrubbery, perennials and bulbs. Have you considered easing up on some of the foundation plantings and creating an ornamental border for some of the plants? Perhaps planting the specimen trees in the yard instead?
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Red flesh ones are usually sweeter than most white flesh ones So you'll like them a lot better. If you only ever had store bought bland white flesh ones and didn't like them. Well, your mind will change, when you guys get to try a home grown ripe fruit. Let them be as of now, let the plant finishing fruiting and ripening them. Then you can hack away the plant of any limbs, you don't want. Those smaller thinner weaker limbs, are actually new growth, that hasn't quite mature and thus is why they are weak looking. If you can bundle or tie them to the trellis and make them climb up and over the trellis, they will naturally and eventually stick on to the wood post with their aerial roots. You can cut some of those none fruiting thick branches off. Cut close to the main stem/branch, that is going up the wood post. The new growth will be easier to train to climb up the wood post/trellis later. As for cutting the branches, you can cut above or below the joint. They will root either way, but before you attempt to root, let the branches/cuttings heal/dry and the wounds have closed for 3-5 days. This will prevent the newly wounded exposed part from rotting, once you can put them in the ground. And if you do offer them up for trading/buying/postage charges, you should wait until people actually want them, so then you can make fresh cut and the cuttings will be fresher won't be drying up too much.
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Marie Tulin
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Have you done the hardscaping already?

If so, good planning!
If not, rethink your timetable and put your planning efforts and money into grading, walkways, lighting for safety and ....I have to say it....the parking space.

Then the trees and shrubs, because they take a while to mature. You can always fill in annuals the first season or two...

Just something to consider, among the other suggestions you'll get.
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Stacey Collins
Original Author
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Thanks folks. I definitely appreciate your input.

I was interested in alcyaddimo's suggestions for Maine... then my planning took a bit of a different turn! I'd been casting about, thinking, "eh, that'll look OK..." and acquired a few plants: Betty Magnolia, Tina Crabapple, and a small White Cedar hybrid. All of sudden I was like, "Eureka!" because I realized that what I really wanted to do was recreate the look and feel of some other existing beds on the property. They were planted in the late 50's/early 60's and have a sort of Asian/Jetsons feel to them. Very appropriate to the house, really. So now I am looking at more Asian/Japanese feeling plants. (I was already going to replant the tons of peonies existing, so that'll go really well!) I'm going to look at Japanese Maples today, and Kousa Dogwood. I think I will put the Japanese Maple and Cedar in the corner, the magnolia on the blank 8' wall of the house where an evergreen is now drawn, and a smaller variety of kousa dogwood on the corner where I drew the magnolia. I know I will have to watch the maple in winter, but it's a VERY protected little corner there, so I'm hoping it will do OK. :)

idabean, Yes, there's existing hardscaping that's fine for now, and I am installing the front path and steps this summer. I'm anxious to get the backbone trees and shrubs started this spring, though!
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Advice on plantings for coastal Maine garden renovation? (pics)

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thisismelissa

alyciaadamo

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Advice on plantings for coastal Maine garden renovation? (pics)

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thisismelissa

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