Hi tree, Hmmm, looks like you have a nice, traditional home with a nice traditional lawn, in a nice traditional neighborhood. My guess is you want to spice it up a bit, but not to the point of sticking out too much. The house faces north... Looks like this would probably be a couple of years project as a do-it-yourself. So, for the time being at least (maybe even permanently) I'd leave the strip between the sidewalk and the street alone. Probably, the first year just focus on that area between the driveway and the house walk. I'd also limit the plants selection initially, like Miss Rumphius said. One of the things I'd do is open up and lace the big tree in front a bit. As far as the bushes in front of the house--I'm not really into boxing and hedging stuff. I'd let them grow more naturally and open them up a bit too. One of the things that would be a concern to me, is that your front yard sort of slopes down to the sidewalk and driveway. I'm not sure how you want to deal with runoff issues. I'm a gardener, so I take things strictly from that perspective. I have a tendency to cram too many things in...but I guess I like it that way. Remember too it takes usually at least a year for a plant to 'take'...and yes, sometimes they don't take but just die. I like the different forms of Rosemary a lot. They don't require much in the way of water, they always look good and they don't require much in the way of maintenance. BUT, they can be slow to establish sometimes. Another group of shrubs I like a lot are Cistus. Just about the same requirements as Rosemary and there is a huge difference in the appearance between the species. Yellow & blue go really well together. Red, yellow, & orange can freely mix. I also think you can experiment with succulents and agaves too. The finer leaved shrubs and plants can soften the succulents up so you don't get too much of that desert/cactus look. I'm always hesitant to give suggestions because sometimes posters want a nice looking yard, but aren't really into gardening. Seems like you did your plant homework though. I'm not familiar with south-central Texas weather but doesn't it get really hot and wet in summer? Anyway, instead of babbling on, here's a pic of yellow Leucospermum with spiney stuff in the back and a big Cistus bush blooming. Don't be afraid to experiment. Once you're taught what a box is...thinking outside the box is like building a house without tools. -Ron- You can right-click the mouse on the image to view a bigger image.

Two dozen! They'll take over the world!!!! What is it you want to cut down? Are last year's flowers still on there, now crispy brown things? The plant itself only grows a couple of inches high, not much to cut down. They do spread sideways though! I pull off the flowers when they are dead at the end of summer. My plants are well-established and I hack them back mercilessly at any time, but you should probably give yours a little more time before getting too aggressive.

Yes, it flowers in early summer, not very interesting yellow flowers, which are hard to notice given the electric chartreuse background! Flowering is simply not the reason to grow this particular sedum - in fact, many gardeners (myself included) snip he flowers OFF so as not to detract from the foliage. . .It's the powerful chartreuse accent you're after. . .since it's so easy to grow (and propagate!) try it in combination with all kinds of things 'til you find something you really like. I have multiple clumps, some over a foot wide, tumbling over rock walls, creeping out from under low-growing junipers, anchoring flowerbeds wherever I want a striking all-season accent - yes, it holds it's color all winter long, and in the fall, the tips take on a reddish orange tinge, It's one cool plant. . .and I guess you can tell I love it! Carl

That answers a bunch of questions for me that may help, Pumpkin! I didnt see your sedum picture till after I did that last post! I thought the cut & paste link was the same thing as the one you linked at the bottom! I found the second pic right after I posted last time! I suspect the lower leaves on the sedum are just dying because of transplant shock! When you go out tomorrow, BEFORE you do anymore watering, pull back some of the grass mulch that would be a couple inches past where the soil in the pot was and then take a spade and dig down into the soil to where youd be BELOW the level of the bottom of the root ball that you planted. (BTW, were there roots thruout the entire soil when you planted it in the ground, or did most of the soil still not have roots in it?) If the soil is wet, not just "moist," that far down, dont water anymore. If you find that youve really only been soaking the top few inches, then water slowly by laying a hose right at the base of the plant and leaving it run on just barely a trickle for 30 minutes or more! IF the soil is wet all the way down to the bottom of the root ball, dont water again until the soilthat deepis almost all the way dry! Thats where the part about it being "like a cactus" comes in! Like a cactus, sedum stores water in the plant itself (albeit not as efficiently as a cactus), so if you water it well when you do water it, it takes up a lot of water and stores it in the leaves and stems and can go for a fairly long time without being watered again. Like with almost all plants, if you keep them wet ALL the time, the roots rot, and if anything, sedum will rot somewhat faster than most non-succulent plants, so be sure youre leaving the soil dry most of the way before you water it WELL again. It all depends on your soil and the weather, but you could possibly be going for 2-3 weeks between waterings. After its been watered really well, wait overnite and then feel a couple of the leaves! Theyll feel firm and "full!" It can go without watering until the leaves are actually starting to feel limp and "thin" without doing any damage at all to the plant. One thing, before I forget it! Plants that are xeric arent drought tolerant until theyre "established." That usually means about a year. What makes plants xeric is the fact that they have very deep root systems so theyre able to draw on water thats deep in the soil. So whenever you get something thats called xeric, be sure you water it deeply when you water it, and as it starts to grow, gradually stretch it out more and more between the deep waterings. That draws the roots deeply into the soil (as the surface dries, the roots have to go deep to get to the water) and will give you the most xeric plant possible. Sedums, on the other hand, being succulents, are more-or-less drought tolerant right from the beginningbuttheyll develop much faster and look much better if theyre watered regularly at least until theyre well established. Now heres the thing nobody likes when I tell them this! IF IT WERE ME, Id cut them down to about 2-3" above the ground! I knew you didnt want to hear that!!! ;-) Your flopping stems, based on the experience Ive had with upright sedums, are not going to "stand up" again! You can stake them if you really want to, but as you can see, the tips are already starting to turn "up" toward the light, and if you stake them, theyre probably going to keep looking kind of strange! And from looking at the picture, Id say that the lower leaves are going to continue to yellow and fall off! IF you cut them down, you could cut the tips (about 4") off of each one, remove all but the top couple leaves (about 4, or 2 "sets" of leaves), and stick them in soil to start more plants! (Have you checked out the Swap thread? ;-) ) BUTif you do decide to cut it down youll want to be EXTRA SURE that you dont water it until the soil, at the bottom of the roots, is most of the way dry! When you cut things down and they suddenly dont have any foliage, they use VERY little water till they start to grow again, so its MUCH easier to overwater them than when they have lots of foliage to help use up any "extra" water! So, whichever way you go, dont water on a schedule! Pull back the mulch and check the soil for moisture before watering! By the way, your watering in the pot was great! When you water, always soak things thoroughlyand then dont water again until the soil is at least half way dry for most things. Not just the surface, but the soil down in the pot. And one other thing, just so you know, MOST things wont do well in pots in "garden soil." Sedum will grow almost anywhere in almost anything, so it worked for that, but with other things Id really recommend using a store-bought potting mixanything EXCEPT Hyponex! With the rose! And most of this is still speculation! First of all, it there is a dead cane in the middle (or more than one), cut it out! Maybe when the previous owner staked it, it was still alive, or partly alive! Dead canes just get in the way, look bad, and could possibly promote disease if/when they start to rot, so Id get rid of it. If you had the rose cut that short this spring, Im guessing its a climber! That means youre really going to need some sort of a trellis for it to grow up and be tied to. You could possibly train/tie it laterally along your deck railing, but Im guessing you dont want to do that! And, Im also guessing that its the type of rose that only blooms on "old wood!" That means that youll get flowers next year on the canes that are growing this year, so if you cut it all the way down in fall again, you will probably get no, or very few, flowers next year. But thats just a guess at this point since you dont have too much experience with it yet. So if you want to check that theory out, get a trellis or lattice for it, tie it up, and leave all the canes on till next summer to see what it does! If some of them are getting too tall for whatever you tie it to, cut the ends of them off, but dont cut them all the way down this fall. Next year you can see what it does and decide what you want to do with it. Its conceivable that the "original" rose that was planted there was completely different, and that what you have in there now is a rose that grew out of the root stock below the "graft." The only way to figure that out for sure would be if you could talk to the person who originally planted it and ask them what type of rose and what color they originally put in! Sometimes when a rose reverts back to the rootstock, people like what they wind up withsometimes they dont! Skybird