Two books for Southern gardeners:

Southern Living Garden Book - Southeast Edition

Smart Garden Regional Guide: Southeast (American Horticultural Society Smartgarden Regional Garden Guides)

The second one gives you examples of plants for various locations, dry/sunny, wet/sunny, shade, etc. It also groups plants by type of garden, and hundreds of other examples. I would pick up that one before the Southern Living book. The SL Southeast guide has listings for thousands of traditionally southern plants and what they need to grow.

Southern Living also has 'Southern Living Landscape Book' with pages and pages of landscape ideas.

"Southern USA" covers a lot of territory. Do you know what zone you are in? Do you garden in clay or sand or loam?
Do you have to deal with deer and bunnies, drought or other special challenges? There are even more site specific books and web sites we could recommend, like a book with plants for the Coastal South.

Oh, and what is your previous gardening experience?

Nell

Sorry to have posted and then fallen off the map. Ended up with the flu and then a serious case of over running landscapers! But now the new driveway is in, so are the stack stone edged pathways and two stair cases on either side of the house leading back to the pool on one side and vegtable gardens on the other. Last step is new gothic privacy fencing which goes up this week in the back yard.

For now I want to confine my work to the front yard and side yards up to the point of the back yard fences. I am in zone 6 I beleive ( Chattanooga TN) we are in the valley right off the side of the tail end of a large ridge that keeps us a bit warmer that than the surrounding areas.

I have excellent soil in the front for the most part save for the area where there used to be huge tree that came down last year. The yard is 80% sunny but does have areas of dappled shade where I want to do Hostas and bleeding hearts?

My budget for all the plantings this year is 5 thousand dollars. That also includes any materials I will need to edge the beds ( still looking for inspirtation for that!)

Alas a cold snap has us indoors today but dreaming of getting out there and digging in some dirt!

maddiemom6
p.s. please pardon the typos, using a new mini-laptop and this keyboard is so small!! I am a total fumbled fingers on it.

How exciting to be planning so many changes in your yard! Living in a cold climate I can't really relate or recommend particular plants but a few things came to mind.

First, if you only spend part of your budget this year, perhaps 2/3 - 3/4, you will have more flexibility in making changes over the next 3 years or so. Gardens evolve and often are better when planned over a few years than all at once. Make your initial plan of the style you want and the important plants and do enough so that you are pleased with the look but you will likely change several things if they do not work out as you envisioned.

With the blue-grey house and white fence there are several ways to go with a color scheme. All pastels would be lovely as would reds, soft blues, and whites. Yellow is also good with the soft blue.

Do hope you have a compost or are planning where to put one. It's so important for a healthy garden as well as a healthy world.

With a great budget, I know you want to do it all at once. My first advice is to take your time. Just like decorating a house, there are so many inspired gardens to see from photos in the gallery here, in magazines (online and in print), etc. Start gathering photos of gardens that you like. You don't have to copy an entire garden, just parts that you like and that are suitable for your zone.

I love the Fine Gardening Color Combinations special edition magazines. These include different color schemes and the names and zones of the featured plants.

If you have some photos to post, we're all friendly here and will chime in with whatever suggestions come to mind.

Cameron

If I had to do it all over again I would focus on the bones first and add shrubs, ornamental trees, a trellis, garden gate, etc. Making sure to have winter interest and then focus on the roses, perennials, etc.

I would also do more of of landscaped looks with groupings of shrubs. There are soo many with so much interest.. I would add hydrangeas, Ilex(winterberries), a few dogwoods, and evergreens.

My beds and borders looks so bare during the late fall, winter and spring, adding the bones first would have been mor cost effective and less work. Good luck! what fun!

Oh, all good ideas.. I totally agree about holding some money back and I will do that but that is just this years budget, there should be more next year ( xing fingers).. and I totally agree about setting the bones and that has been my first thought since otherwise I am afraid you are right that it would be pretty empty for part of the year. Since I have a bit to play with I am hoping to get the larger size of plants so while not a mature looking garden one that looks a bit farther along. I have one bed that I am doing all in seed this year just for the experience of it.. might be fun to document and for less than $20 worth of seed it will be interesting to see what I get. I feel I can do that there since next year we have to have some work done over that area to expand a " Swiss deck" that is there and too small to really be useable.. the some time 1 year from now it will be covered..but that will not be a loss with just using seed there.. I might even get some transplants from it if I am lucky :)

Favorite evergreen shrubs anyone???? that is going to be my first purchases!
Maddie

I'm in a much colder zone, won't recommend specific plants. Agree with Luckygal and Carmeron: take it slow. Learn what works best for you.

Do you have room for an out-of-the-way nursery bed to try things out? That's one of the best things I did. My experience: Tackle only as many beds as you can realistically look after daily the first year, mulch the heck out of the others.

Fave evergreen shrub here in zone 5? Rhododendron.

Best wishes, Ana

With that kind of budget, I would pay for an hour or two consultation with a good professional designer to set me on the path toward where I need to go. Local professionals know what is appropriate to plant where you are.

My new favorite evergreen is Florida anise for the Coastal South. I wouldn't plant it just anywhere, as it gets big and the flowers 'smell funny.' My favorite evergreen that grows most everywhere is boxwood, a sometimes controversial plant.

Are you interested in using native plants? Are you interested in a 'period garden' appropriate to the era of your house? Or do you just want a pretty yard?

Nell

Somewhere near Chattanooga lived a woman named Sandy Parrot. She sells plants - beautiful things that grow in your climate. I used to buy loads of clematises from her on Ebay. She also sells antique roses, native shrubs - all interesting things. You should ask around if anyone knows her. I think she could be of great help.

Good luck on your exciting project!!

I can't comment on which plants but IMO the bones are the most important part, everything else will fall in place. Have you been gardening long or is this a new venture?
If new take your time, take pictures of your layout with you to a few reputable nurseries, explain what type of garden YOU want, take a camera with you, take pictures of plants/shrubs that appeal to you, come home pictures in hand visualize what will look good where. Don't be surprised when you find what you thought would look good in a certain spot doesn't, but looks good in a spot several feet away or....you toss the idea altogether.

You've been given a lot of good ideas, don't rush it after all this is going to be your dream garden, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Annette, who's garden came about from hours of constructive staring and lots of...well that didn't work did it :o).

Well inspite of all the storms we have had I got 25ish feet of garden border in today. 5 shrubs and various perenials plus some annuals that my kids really wanted since they wanted some color right away.

I have done two consults with professionasl so far... WHAT is up with them all wanting to use ornamental grass?.. I am not a fan of the stuff but it seems to be all the rage. I can't seem to get the look I want from them based on the sketches they bring back to me. So.. I am going it alone..and guess I am doing ok so far.. had two people stop by my house and tell me how nice it is looking and they ohhh and ahhh'd over the new plantings..

I am breaking the project up into sections since otherwise i think it would be way to over whelming. Next is the front door flower bed which faces West/ north-west.. Morning shade and quite hot on Summer afternoons.. and I think it will get a lot of refracted light and heat from the new drive way... this makes me worry about my roses....

hmmm

Maddie