design an NC Piedmont garden around this!

15 years ago

Here is a link to a pic of the garden I have been asked to design and install for a friend, free of charge, just for fun. I would enjoy hearing your ideas. I did her a sketch of what I would do, with lists of plants for full sun. It's in Winston-Salem. We have already planted a purple Crepe Myrtle on the right, in the mulched garden bed area, and outlined a huge curved bed that cuts across the sidewalk for flowers in the background, grass in front.

http://s65.photobucket.com/albums/h229/Bostoncrocus/?action=view&current=100_2508.jpg

Here is a link that might be useful:

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (10)

dellare
15 years ago
I see a nice specimen maple here and there as I am sure you do too. Nice looking house. You should have alot of fun. What kind of soil and sun exposure? Adele
Iris GW
15 years ago
Your friend probably doesn't want a big tree in the front, but it sure looks like it needs something big to balance out the house. How I miss the stately oaks of the past, gracefully shading front yards throughout the South ....

Perhaps instead some sort of arbor to give some structure to the area and provide a welcoming entrance closer to the street. Cover it with an evergreen vine like Bignonia (crossvine) or Clematis armandii. Then add a deciduous vine (like a purple clematis) to twine in with it and provide more color at a different time.
Related Discussions
Is there a Calendar for gardening in NC??
Q
Comments (14)
Yes at http://www.nantahala-farm.com/farm.shtml I spent 3 years and thousands of hours writing the 'Western North Carolina Farm and Garden Calendar' good for hardiness zones 5-6. It can be used in most hardiness zones in the United States by adding or subtracting months depending on the climate. I wrote it to help people survive better in hard times. It shows you when/how to plant and harvest for each month of the year for your garden, greenhouse and farm. Each month is divided into 5 sections: Garden-Maintenance, Garden-Plant, Garden-Harvest, Greenhouse, and Farm Animals. Plus there are special garden tips, seed saving, seed starting, soil fertility, plant health, pest control methods, plant families, herbs, fruit/nut trees, foraging, folklore, pasture/hay, farm animals, using medicinal plants, food storage, and food preparation. This is a labor of love. It is good for the novice or sophisticated gardener. Written in simple terms for all to understand with many definitions, and references to good books. Experienced gardeners learn about unusual plants and different methods of growing and harvesting plants. For instance, growing potatoes from seeds (not tubers) to fight disease problems that is very interesting. Written with survival gardening/farming as the priority. For instance, crops that give high yield in calories in a small area are emphasized. Vegetables good for storing over winter are covered extensively with information on how to store them properly, and which varieties store the best. Grain harvesting by hand is explained. One goal is to get people gardening and farming most of the year with many cool season crops. Some vegetables can be grown all year in most climates with a greenhouse or cold frame. Sustainable farming and gardening is stressed with alternatives given for getting a job done with limited resources. For instance, many recipes for worming animals are given, some of which you can grow. Another example is how to make your own rooting hormone with willow. Be self sufficient. Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Calendar
...See More
fall vegetable garden in the Piedmont
Q
Comments (7)
Janelle, Mizuna and Tah Tsai are two of many Asian salad greens that are easy to grow in the fall. I also recommend Park Seed's Chef's Blend leaf lettuce. Regarding broccoli, I bought a pack of Renee's Seeds' Mix of 3 Hybrids last summer at Logan's in downtown Raleigh. I started about 18 plants in containers in late August and planted them in late September in a 4 x 8 raised bed ala Square Foot Gardening. In late October I put several 9-gauge wire hoops over the bed and covered it with shade cloth/row cover when frost was forecast. We ate the first small heads in late November and through Christmas. Ever since then we have been getting lots of side shoots. In really cold weather I covered the shade cloth with 1 mil polyethylene plastic. In late spring I assumed that the fall raised broccoli would soon give out, so I bought a flat of half Packman broccoli and half Snow Crown cauliflower. The fall raised broccoli is still going strong and the plants are getting quite large. Admittedly, in this hot weather the broccoli has a stronger taste, but we still eat it both in casseroles and raw in salads mixed with leaf lettuce, carrots, summer squash. basil and whatever else is available. The biggest pest problem has been slugs. I have put out beer in sunken yogurt cups, iron phosphate-based slug bait and practiced hand picking into a pail of soapy water late at night. Curiously, there are white cabbage butterflies in the garden constantly, but there have been very few of their caterpillars, and little damage from them. Recently, I was about to harvest a broccoli stem when I noticed a large wasp sitting on a leaf eating a "cabbage worm". It ate the whole thing before flying off. In the spring I let the fall planted mustard plants flower and have been growing fennel, butterfly weed and lots of different flowers to attract different bees and wasps, and they seem to be helping with insect pests. I had planned to start dusting with BT in the spring, but between the bees & wasps and hand picking, it has not been necessary.
...See More
NC State Fair -- don't miss the garden displays!
Q
Comments (20)
Cameron- you can credit me as Tammy Kennedy. I should start watermarking all the photos i post online since i hope to sell some someday. It's just a hassle and i haven't gotten into the habit or that paranoid yet. I don't mind if you mention i'm tamelask on GW- it's no big secret. I'll email you a pdf of the plot board and you can get all the info you want off it. I had 130 varieties/species of plants or so in there, so you'll probably want to pare it down to the big stuff. I was tickled when we went out today to discover no mud from the 1.25" of rain we had fri eve! I adore silkies. Growing up, we had a flock of show banties and a few big ones for selling eggs- we ate the banty eggs ourselves, as well as the duck eggs. We had a few black and white silkies, among other types. It was my job before the chicken shows to wash and blow dry them to get them ready for the show. Some folks would using old fashioned blueing for the grey (so called blue) and white ones, but we never did. We were involved to have fun, show a little, meet like minded folks and get fresh eggs, never to just win. Silkies are incredibly sweet birds. Chickens in general are much smarter and lots funnier than most people give them credit for. We had one that liked to watch TV, one that liked to ride on our shoulders and 'fly' around on our hands (we'd hold her under her keel, with her legs hanging between our fingers & she'd spread her wings as we flew her like a kid does a toy airplane- it was very cute), and some other funny ones. I think most of the time the flock numbered around 40, 70 or so at the top end. I'd have chickens in a heartbeat now, but we have parrots and there are certain diseases that pass back & forth, so we don't. I do miss really fresh eggs, though. Brian- rootbeer plant, huh? I'll have to ck that out. hadn't heard of that. I have the plant/vine that makes black peppercorns, but so far it's not too impressive.
...See More
Lawn and garden plan Piedmont NC
Q
Comments (6)
Thank you for doing your homework and knowing what we'd ask for. Shade is a huge problem on that lot. How attached are you to your beautiful, mature, trees...(that have no character)? Is your tree guy an experienced, certified arborist who can see the statue of Venus de Milo in the chunk of rock or is he someone who has a couple saws and a magnetic sign on his truck? I couldn't tell you which limbs need to go, but in that first picture at least 20 of them need to go from that cluster of limbs in the middle. That tree was never planned from the git-go. In the back yard it could be you should only have one of those mature trees. I mean it's nice to have mature trees but not if they are waaaaaay overgrown for their location. I'm sure everything was beautiful 20 years ago, but not anymore. They are out of scale or grown out of proportion to the lot size. Do this: Google willow oak and look at the Images tab. Does your willow oak look like the pictures or is it cramped up in itself or being pushed around by adjacent trees? Do the same for the rest of your trees. I just bought a house with some mature mesquite trees, mature crape myrtles, an immature (but overgrown) live oak, and a Texas mountain laurel. Oh and some dead stumps. The mesquite trees were ugly, in the power lines, and over growing a crape myrtle. So I had the stumps taken down to the ground, mesquite trees removed, and the live oak partially thinned out. I'm starting over with an almost completely blank slate, but it already has better curb appeal and, hence, higher value.
...See More
trianglejohn
15 years ago
I see roses. Lots of roses. If it was for me I would widen the sidewalk; plant cottage style flowerbeds up near the house and leave the lawn for down by the sidewalk. Things like Garden Phlox, Shasta Daisies, Crocosmia, Hydrangea...

I also like a 'Hollywood' Juniper or two at the corners up near the house but they do better out on the coast. I'm not sure how well they would do in W-S.

I like Crape-myrtle's but I would only do one if it is a large one. To me the purple ones bloom for the shortest period the pink ones bloom longer and there is one white one that will bloom very late around here. New ones get developed every year so cultivar names are unimportant.

Another cool look for that house color would be one of the purple leaved Mimosa's (I know, a mimosa! shame on me but I like them).

Since I garden in the deep shade when I see full sun exposure I want to fill it with perennials and annuals that bloom all summer, others may want a shade tree.
coorscat
15 years ago
I see magnolia trees in the front. Something that will provide lots of shade to that front yard. As a second, I am with John on the mimosa trees...there is no shame in liking them even if they spread like crazy. A house of that stature needs large trees in front, IMHO
Iris GW
15 years ago
Mimosa is a trash tree that only blooms for a short while, is one of the LAST trees to put out leaves in the spring and has no fall color. And it is considered one of the top ten invasive plants in the southeast. Y'all can do better than to suggest that!

So many other worthy trees to choose from! Scarlett oak (Quercus coccinea) is a fast growing native oak with gorgeous fall color (hence the name). Yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea) is an underused native tree that is quite unique. The neighbors probably won't have one and it will get lots of attention.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cladrastis kentukea
joydveenc7
15 years ago
Love the house and I have to agree on the roses and widening the sidewalk. I'd do the opposite of TJ by putting a 4' or wider border at the street, another around the house, and a little lawn in the middle. Buddleias can be limbed up like small crape myrtles and spaced unevenly across the streetside border. The leaves on some around the Triad area are still green now even after all the cold lately. They would give you some sense of setting the house back from the street without obscuring it.
mbuckmaster
15 years ago
So many better "unique" choices than mimosa....snowbell (styrax), sourwood (oxydendrum), serviceberry (amelanchier), buckeye (aesculus), silverbell (halesia)...the list goes on. And you can almost never go wrong with a dogwood or a redbud. There are some really excellent newer varieties of both that will knock anyone's socks off (and certainly beat mimosa any way you cut it).
trianglejohn
15 years ago
Yes but - the purple or red leaved form of Mimosa is slower growing and tends to flatten out like a Japanese Maple and the purple-y see through cast it would give up towards the back would look great with the house color. You don't grow them for the flowers but for the leaf color.
Iris GW
15 years ago
If that was the effect I wanted, trianglejohn, then I'd use a japanese maple - you'd at least get some good fall color and it would leaf out earlier in the year.

mbuckmaster has some good ideas. I like the 'Forest Pansy' redbud (have it myself), but it only does well in full sun and the fall color is not that good.
m_taggart
15 years ago
Your friend will rue the day he/she let you plant a mimosa tree in his/her yard. They spread invasively and he'll call YOU to pull the hundreds of seedlings sprouting in the lawn and flower beds every spring. Do yourselves a favor and do not plant this tree.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mimosa - Exotic Pest

design an NC Piedmont garden around this!

Comments (10)

dellare

Iris GW

Related Discussions

trianglejohn

coorscat

Iris GW

joydveenc7

mbuckmaster

trianglejohn

Iris GW

m_taggart

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US