So you need to sell your garden ? (and, oh yeah, the house too)
david_5311
18 years ago
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david_5311
18 years agolast modified: 9 years agostacyp9
18 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
When do you know when your taking it too far?
Comments (36)I recently had a neighbor approach me as I was fixing some rotted siding on my garage. This is the neighbor whose lawn is saturated with creeping charlie. He asked, hey with all the money you are putting into this house, are you planning on staying here awhile? First, the repairs we were making weren't for cosmetic purposes, they were more functional. I'd assumed, "all the money" meant all the landscaping we've done ourselves. I love my yard, and I regret not getting started on it sooner when we purchased our home in 2004, we waited a few years and focused on the interior, with no relaxing, private, soothing patio to relax on. But, oh, today, we can enjoy sitting on our patio on our very small lot, with privacy from our neighbors. It's nice, and would I love to purchase a home with the landscaping already done? You bet, but I don't regret that I had to do it myself, because now I'm hooked and I love what I've learned - gardening and landscaping is very therapeutic to me. I've also wondered how much is too much, but I've been told by neighbors that I'm their inspiration, and we have people stopping at the front of our house to view our property from time to time, so we are heading in the right direction, especially as plants begin to mature. I have a small back yard, and yet in my rear yard I have a poplar tree (soon to be replaced), a mature lilac shrub, a hedge of privets, 2 smokebush trees/shrubs, a green giant thuja, an emerald green thuja, 5 purple leaf sand cherries, a serviceberry, a red japanese maple, a heptacodium, and a katsura willow tree, among various perennials, vines, and evergreen and deciduous shrubs. I'm thinking of adding a degroots spire and replacing the poplar with a dogwood or magnolia. The placement for each works, and creates a nice lush private space for us. I have run out of planting space, but I don't intend to lose more lawn, so now it's just waiting for everything to reach maturity and a matter of enjoying what we created. As long as you are comfortable in your own space, that's all that matters. There are a couple homes that we see on our walks in the neighborhood, with the front lawn completely over done in an awkward cottage style. There's nothing wrong with the style, but I think when homes like that are wedged between other homes with more open or formal landscaping, it looks odd and out of place. I feel sorry for the immediate neighbors. In my opinion when all you see is the landscaping from the curb and not the house, that's when you've gone overboard. I dread the day we sell our home and someone who doesn't appreciate what we've done lives here. We joke about it sometimes. But, I've recently heard from some new owners in the neighborhood that others talk about the work we've done on the house with the "striped awnings", so it's nice to hear when you've invested so much sweat into improving it and making it your own. I don't care if anyone thinks we've put too much money into our house. We didn't buy to flip it, and I don't ask everyone else how they spend their money....See MoreThinking about selling my house,How do you let go of your garden?
Comments (20)I don't think I could do it, move that is. Not after 25 years of turning a nothing yard into flowers and beautiful shrubs. what I would suggest is collecting seeds from all of your annuals that you possibly can. Take cuttings of all perennials that you can and start rooting them now. If you wait any longer to start rooting them or taking root divisions, it will be too late to try and plant them in your new home. Maybe you should wait till next year and start the plans to sell in the spring. That way you will have all your annual seeds and divisions and root cuttings to start in your new home. Of course, you could do what a neighbor of mine just did. She'd lived in her home for over 40 years and moved into an in-law apartment with her son. This elderly woman dug up just about all of her perennials and annuals then end of july and moved them with her to her new home. She had to have had at least 200 plants with her. She did ask the new owners what, if any, plans they had for her gardens. They where kind enough to tell her they where going to demolish 5 of her garden beds to add on to the house and throw out all of the plants.!!!!! That's all she needed to hear, she started digging 3 weeks before they closed on the house. Yes she gave quite a few seeds and plants. No way where they going into the garbage heap....See MoreSell/build (and if so where) or stay put?
Comments (21)Tad, That same area I love is on the northmost edge of Murfreesboro, so as close to Nashville as you can get and still be in Murfreesboro. Communting from West Nashville to Murfreesboro was pretty difficult when I was trying to get home for anything like picking up kids from school. Traffic can get pretty dense right about exit 70, Almaville Road/Smyrna until at least exit 74 where you can exit to the edge of Murfreesboro. That four miles can be really difficult during the commute home. The commute to work gets dense right about Hickory Hollow to Harding Road. And the ways around it, aren't much better. Too many lights. But if you don't mind driving for 45-90 minutes to get home, it's worth it. There is enough in Murfreesboro to keep you happy, it's less expensive, more relaxed atmosphere, close enough to Nashville for anything it doesn't have. I can't speak to the benefits/problems of Franklin, but living in Franklin, it seems like my youngest brother is really struggling financially to live there. And at no other time have they struggled. Is it worth it? Dunno. All places have good schools. _____________________________________________ Murfreesboro school rating: http://www.greatschools.org/tennessee/murfreesboro/ Franklin school rating: http://www.greatschools.org/tennessee/franklin/ Nashville school rating: http://www.greatschools.org/tennessee/nashville/ And because I know my hometown, more Nashville ratings http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/tennessee/districts/metropolitan-nashville-public-schools/hume-fogg-academic-high-school-18154 (Gold ranking from US News and World Report #54 in the nation) http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/tennessee/districts/metropolitan-nashville-public-schools/martin-luther-king-jr-magnet-at-pearl-high-school-18163 (Gold rating from US News and World Report and ranked #73 in the nation)...See MoreLook at all that surviving cane (oh yeah, and spring bulbs too)
Comments (22)Thanks Martinca & Irisgal. Sharing the garden is half the fun of having it. I'm just about to run home from work and cut bouquets from some folks that are helping me out at work, as well as of course for a thank you for administrative professionals day. Sharon you also ask a good question about the bulbs (lots of excellent questions on this thread). Being a "rose chaos" gardener, I don't worry overly much about a week or two of looking scruffy while the foliage dies down. I find that the tulips go from green to yellow in about 2 weeks once they whole expanse dies off, and in fact some of the foliage in the first picture above is starting to die while other tulips are still blooming. So part of the answer is to have a lot of bulbs that bloom at different times so that they disguise the earlier foliage that's starting to die down. Once the tulip foliage turns yellow and flops over it's OK to clip it off. The bigger challenge as far as foliage goes is the daffodils, since that foliage doesn't fully fade till June in my area, and you need to leave it up and green or you'll start to sacrifice repeat bloom. I've read research that you can trim 1/3 of the foliage off the end and have the rest be just as productive, so I do that and it tidies up the rough ends a lot. Since I have bulbs planted every square inch (ideally) around other perennials and roses, the other plants are eager to shove the bulb foliage aside to get blooming on their own. One thing I don't have to worry about is a garden bed that's not thickly planted enough (smile). I find that I trim off the tulip foliage in the first bed you see listed because it's the earliest to bloom and fade, but by the time I get to mid-May there are so many other plants growing in the other beds that I don't notice the dying foliage at all after that point. I'll clip it off if I see it dead around roses when I'm working with them, but frankly I often just let the bulbs die down and join the leaf mulch as they quickly turn about the same color. As noted earlier though, planting this thickly with water-hungry plants like roses does cut back on the bulb rebloom, but it sure supports my lazy gardener habit. If you want to maximize your blooming from various plants for a minimum of effort, I'd probably interplant the daffodils and tulips among drought-hardy perennials like agastache or lavender or russian sage or salvia or all those types of plants. They're tall enough to hide the dying foliage but dry enough to co-exist happily with bulbs. However, I like roses too much not to put them in every bed, so even though I have all the above perennials I can't resist mixing in roses as well. They duke it out and seem to manage Ok. Hope that helps! Cynthia...See MoreSue W (CT zone 6a)
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