hey.. welcome to the conifer forum ...

see link ... concentrate on ANNUAL GROWTH RATES ... a plant that grows one foot per year.. is estimated to be 10 feet at 10 years.. get out, you say .. lol .. and at 20 yrs... 20 feet.. etc ..... until you or it dies ...

conifers are trees.. ans as such.. they NEVER stop growing.. say at some magical height of 8 feet ... its all about how big at planting.. its annual growth rate.. and the decades ...

also at that link ...in the right margin ... read up on shapes and colors ...

and while you seem interested.. now is the time to learn the latin names on these plants ...

cruise back up to your first pic .... what i see???? ... a flat presentation ... all exactly the same height .... and all the standard green ...

you can fix the color with conifers.. year round...

but i also suggest you figure out how to use some verticals ... and i would look to where you have brick wall ... rather than window ...

and NOTHING planted closer than 5 to 6 feet .... to the house

grass for kicking a soccer ball.. that slopes to the street ... lol.. ok ...

conifer kingdom is high on my list.. never heard of the other ...

frankly.. mugo is about as boring as you can get ... trust me.. i have about 15 different ones.. lol .... what did i know back then.. lol ....

check out this link ... and follow it religiously:

https://sites.google.com/site/tnarboretum/Home/planting-a-tree-or-shrub

lets see what others have to say ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

well two things

first you said: Conifers will be the Skeleton of the front house plantings, and trying to see what fits in the "medium" tall size.

==>> remember.... they are trees... medium would be 20 to 30 feet in 15 years or so ..... so study that annual growth rate ...

second .... you said: though I'm not absolutely settled on a straight bed across the front, but generally there is extra watering for those areas,

==>>> do not make the bed straight .... add some curves ... and most conifers do not need irrigation ... nor appreciate being sprayed every day .... especially blues which are a waxy coating.. that will wear off with repeated spraying .....

do not take any of this as meaning they cant be used.. i am striking on the most prominent issues ... for you to analyze ...

ken

Make a list of plants that you like perennials, conifers, etc ( that will grow in the front of your house ( N,E, S or West) , then ask at you local garden center for a landscape designer that will draw a scale landscape plan. You can do the digging and just follow the plan. Hopfully you find a designer that has some plant /conifer knowledge. You will pay a few hundred for the plans, but you will make the cost up in mistakes when you have to remove misplanted plants. Continue doing the research on which plants will grow in your area, and how large the will get,
It is very important to have a scale drawing. Be wanrned --- If the designer just wants to draw circles on a piece of paper and color them in, move on to someone who can measure.

Mike

Here is a link that might be useful: My two Cents

There hasn't been a plan I haven't changed, even my own. More often than not, during construction.
It's nice to have a pretty good idea to begin with though.
Mike

Thanks for the advice, I'm pretty set on doing the design myself, after all that's half the fun in doing the research. I'm pleased with my past attempts but now I have a much larger canvas and am just exploring conifers and non-herbaceous shrubs.

I'm realizing that I may be forcing something that isn't going to work. Since I just can't have things growing up up up forever in this space I'll probably invest in a weeping conifer and throw some TBD dwarf, mounding, or prostrate conifers at specific spots and just wait for them to grow in.

Basically, this is just in front of the house, so no "trees", or at least upright trees. At most I'm looking at a weeping conifer like Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca Pendula', etc... and for verticals maybe columnar barberry or boxwood etc... But really it's mostly in the low height stuff. I'm just trying to avoid the boring suburban evergreen boxwood/azalea/yew/junipers that I just got done ripping out, and exist all around the neighborhood.

@Ken_Adrian, yes, the lawn slopes, and it will be bordered by perennial beds mostly, thanks for the concern about roll away balls!

I'd be happy with some pancake forms, or irregular shaped conifers that end up in the 3-4' height range, width is negotiable. I just need to do some research. My goal is to find 3-4 main conifers that don't grow "up". Out is ok, but my space doesn't allow "up".

The brick area in front of the stairs is going to be a clematis dedicated trellis, I'm looking for a ground cover, for the drop off, and I'm thinking possibly a prostrate form of a white pine or similar...

And I have to find a few spots for Roses, I had like 25 at the last house in a teeny tiny space, so maybe not so many, but I'm looking for diversity.

I'm just not a big fan of most of the evergreen shrubs that I've seen, except maybe some laurels, nandina, possibly piers japonica, but I've been exploring the shrubs forum as well. If I'm going to give up space to an ever green, I'd rather have an interesting form like a conifer than a blobulous bush...

Decidious shrubs are a different, and I'm scouting out plants. I have spread sheets for my perennials that i have planned, just need to keep researching shrubs and conifers. I've never been more impressed by conifers as I have by looking through some of the pictures people have here.

My wife is an architect with a minor in landscape, so the drawing isn't the hard part, it's picking the right plants, visualizing, and providing the right environment. It's 100% full sun, south facing, so doesn't get much better than that for most plants. Water is of course optional, but I prefer to provide regular water at least at the base. I had our arborvitae in the last house watered at the base and they did really well in the short time we had them (we moved).

I will do some more research and report back, and I'm fairly good with latin names, but conifers and shrubs are new, so I'm getting those down. I was thinking of buying dirr's encyclopedia of trees and shrubs, unless someone knows a better table reference?

Thanks, Bill

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This post was edited by ocelaris on Fri, Nov 15, 13 at 21:31

If you want to be able to control things, I would recommend putting more emphasis on things that can be pruned and shaped the way you like them. Things you would need to be careful with are trees like spruces, where there are few options as far as pruning, so buy cultivars that will have the exact shapes you're looking for. Pines, on the other hand, are fairly controllable, once you learn how they grow. The focus is on Japanese gardens, but myself and many others here really like the book Niwaki, for learning pruning & shaping techniques.

Somebody link the thread of the small garden in Ohio where the guy has shaped nearly every tree to meet his goal. It's as gorgeous as any park, on a tiny little property.

In my next life I want to have a full sun garden around the house with nothing but conifers>>then woods in the background. Have you ever looked at finefoliage website? They have wonderful ideas.

Shadeyplace, something along these lines?
The Azaleas in the foreground are evergreen, but show Fall color. I selected them for that reason. Don't ask me the names because I either never knew, or I've long since forgotten them.
Mike

OMG that is absolutely wonderful!!

what a bunch of show offs... lol ...

here.. this is what you can do with things that grow LESS THAN 3 INCHES per year .... which you boned up on with my first link.. right ...

ken

first.. if you wnat to extend that bed.. think retaining wall ... you cant believe how goofy this house looked.. sitting up there.. before i put in the wall ....

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and this is up top of the wall ... the plants there are around 6 years old or so ... ANYTHING is possible in the conifer world ... size wise....

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and here is a ginormous cat for scale ...

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why am i envious of botann/mikes pix????

Plant another weeping larix - that sucker was gorgeous.

@ Ken..."frankly.. mugo is about as boring as you can get ... trust me".

Seriously

I can prove you wrong on that one.

Dave

i know dave.. first.. show off some goodies ...

but yes.. i was speaking bigboxstore generic ....

make a list of what dave shows you ... and bear in mind.. not all mugo are created equal ...

feeling enabled yet.. lol

ken

last time we adopted a newb.... we worked out a plan for her.. at the link below..

perhaps.. if you peruse that.. you can get some ideas ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Thanks all, I'm reading everything here, trying to catch up with everything and just get familiar, that other newb thread is a good reference.

I just like the dwarf Mugo Pine forms, candelbras. We have a ton of cedars that surround the lot that have been hacked to death, 2 huge oaks in the back, and a maple that shaded the side.

It's a 100x100 lot, but it's set back about 50 feet, and the back is shaded, maybe 20 feet deep. NOT our ideal lot, in the last house we had a north facing garden but it had full sun in the summer, and we absolutely wanted a huge sunny back yard. But we settled on this house because of condition and size and the town in Bergen County, NJ. So making due with what we have which is a huge front yard, and full sun.

My biggest problem is picking "the tree" that I'm going to let grow up and be the focal point on the left side. I just keep looking at all the pictures everyone has of individual plants, and it's hard to imagine them in the landscape. I'm really looking for what something is going to look like 10-20 years down the road. I'd like something that goes out and wide rather than up, because I don't really want to block the house. I just can't go vertically more than 6-8 feet long term, so I need to go out and sideways. For the other dwarf conifers it shouldn't be a problem, but I'm trying to pick a few that can get much larger in the landscape.

With that in mind I picked a few that I'm interested in if anyone has some suggestions as to easily acquirable cultivars. Budget is a consideration, so I'm fine to start small, but with so much going on, it's going to be a challenge to keep costs down initially with so much space to fill. The perennials are really cheap because they're going to be started from seed mostly, but shrubs and conifers will be a reasonably big outlay.

Anyone know by chance some good nurseries in the New York City area?
I'm really leaning towards the pinus species, maybe something about being from the east coast and used to seeing them around. Had never seen a real Abies until we went to Portland for vacation, accidentily insulted a farmer's market seller by calling his fir tree a "pine"... oops!

Thanks again for bearing with a conifer-newb. Bill

Here are some conifers that I'm trying to emulate as far as the "larger" forms. My apologies if they're somebody else's pictures, some are from conifer kingdom, some are from this site. Just really like these cultivars, and it looks to me that what I'm after is doable.

Picea pungens 'the blues'

pinus Parvifloras

Pinus Parvifloras 'Negishi'

Picea pungens 'Prostrata'

Pinus schwerinii 'Wiethorst' (x. schwerinii)

Pinus Sylvestris 'Valley Cushion'

Pinus Sylvestris 'Beuvronensis'

Sorry one last question, what's standard procedure for planting conifers. With the Roses and Arborvitae, and perennial beds I mixed peat moss and lots of compost. It's a sandy loam soil, on the low side of pH ~6.0 probably at the moment, but I've been liming for the lawn to bring it up. Here's a shot of the original soil test, which I've worked to correct over the past year with lime and some potassium, a bit of magnesium, boron and manganese.

But where the conifers will be growing is it reccomended to do a good amount of amendments with organics like perennials and roses? I will be getting probably a few yards of compost for the raised beds, so it's no big deal to give the little guys a helping hand. I plan to mulch every spring as the town gives away free mulch from ground up trees etc... I had a bad experience with "hot" mulch before, so I'll be very careful.

There is a watering zone for the front where the conifers/shrubs/perennials will live that I will convert to drip irrigation, but any other general health/wellness recommendations are appreciated.

first.. quit apologizing ... the froums can get real slow... between now and spring ... so you are entertaining us ... as we teach you ...

planting instructions below.. PLANT IN NATIVE SOIL ... what you tore out is proof that your soil is not that bad.. though i am too lazy to study your soil test.. lol .. i will defer if that 5 pH is wrong for conifers ... its just too early ... lol ..

i will review your selections after coffee ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

" i will review your selections after coffee".

And how many cups is that?

LOL ...

I couldn't help myself Ken.

Dave

Around here, we have mostly Hebrew coffee. When my wife makes it, we call it Shebrew.
Mike

Coming in late to the party, but what you are requesting is typically referred to in landscaping circles as a "mixed border", probably the single most common planting situation/request I encounter in my design business. Including small conifers and both broadleaved evergreen and deciduous shrubs is pretty much par for the course - these provide the framework or the "bones" that give the garden structure year round and most particularly, interest in winter.

There are soooo many conifers that qualify for inclusion in this type of planting situation that I'd doubt you'd be very limited. It all depends on the scale of the planting area - the larger/deeper the planting bed, the larger in scale the anchor plants can be. I'd not want to limit myself unnecessarily with the broadleaved evergreen shrubbery, either. Many of these produce flowers as well AND can add a textural component - you want a range of plant textures to provide the most visual interest and broadleaved evergreens are tailor-made for that purpose.

One of this forum's more active members, Sara, has an excellent example of a mixed border planting -- except that it extends through her entire garden!! But the concept of combining trees and shrubs, including conifers, together with perennials, grasses, vine and groundcovers is beautifully illustrated by this garden. And it is featured in the December 2013 issue of Fine Gardening magazine, currently available on newsstands so you can hold examples of this great planting style in your hot little hand and imagine how to incorporate it into your own garden :-))

FWIW, many public gardens utilize this garden design philosophy so should not be too hard to locate one in your area. I might just start out with the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

Thanks, I used to subscribe to fine gardening a few years back but let it lapse, good magazine. We actually lived 5 minutes away from the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx for 5 years, so would walk down there nearly every weekend when it was nice out; really nice to be so close. We picked most of our roses based on the foliage success/failure in their garden, and similarly took some queues from their perennial gardens. I regret not paying more attention to the conifer section, but I'm going to try and go back and take a look when we have the opportunity. I've been to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens as well a few times.

The sprinkler heads that feed the mixed bed is at about 6' out, and there are 2x sprinklers for the lawn at about 8' out. So if I curve the bed out where the windows are, assuming nothing closer than 4' to the house, I should have beds that are between 8 and 16' deep basically. I'll have the wife draw up a better plan with bed depths etc... and start charting what size the various conifers need. I also have the entire front coming up to the street that I have a seperate watering zone, and need a "ball block" to keep the soccer ball from rolling down the hill. :)

one of the great things about conifers.. is that they look the same all winter... you havent lived.. until you have walked around a conifer garden in 2 feet of snow and a blistering 30 mph winter wind.. in MI .. in january ..... lol ... probably wont be so bad for you ...

take the camera.. pic of name tag.. then plant ...

a local garden really shows you what is zone appropriate for your area ...

the irrigation system can be honed... do not think of it as static ... you have the supply lines.. how you fine tune it is simple.. no real need to call back a pro, if you had it done by such ..

ken

forgive me if i link you back to the same prior post ...

i am thinking perhaps i linked you to the wrong one ...

this is the one... where we struggled to get OP to define her goals ... and her result ended up much different from what she thought at the beginning ....

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Thanks, it sounds like it's a reoccuring theme for people to come in asking for big design questions. I guess I've already laid out the rough shape of the beds in my mind based on the limitations of the space and am now looking to fill in the key positions that will frame the space. In layman's terms, which conifers [that I like] will physically give me that size in the 10-30 year range.

I installed the sprinkler system myself, so it's no big deal to make adjustments, I was just stating that water was available if necessary during establishment, drought, heat etc...

I would state my goal is probably "how do I cram as many of my favorite plants into my space as possible?" This is under the assumption that every plant needs it's own space and you design for the long term, particularly the smaller conifers (as my assumption is that I won't be able to find these conifers locally, so they'll be small mail order plants). And those small mail order conifers will need to not be over shadowed by other shrubs or perennials.

I'm fairly good at latin name familiarization, as I've grown orchids, perennials, grasses, but conifers are a bit more difficult, particularly because there seems to be an unlimited number of the same species, but different cultivars which differ in shape and size. i.e. an abies koreana could be 1 foot or 10' or 50' tall! A Phaldelphus is only going to get 10' tall ever!

So I took a break from conifer memorization to regain my momentum on the over all planning. So I picked out some "want to have" shrubs, just kind of an easy, fun to pick out plants. I'm balancing the number of conifers with the evergreen shrubs vs. decidious shrubs. i.e. a Camelia being evergreen would make a nice back drop for a short picea pugens, but I could get away with something deciduous also. But a Philadelphus being deciduous is going to need a conifer near by to offset the winter bare... But it's all under the assumption that in 30 years it will be mostly Conifers, a few favorite shrubs, and a few perennials.

Now to get back to conifer planning... need to develop a "must have" list of conifers, but this is much different wrapping my head around names than past plants.

Shrubs "Want list"
Philadelphus ‘Manteau d'Hermine’ 4-5'
Camelia TBD - tall background
Smoke Bush tall background
Abelia x Grandiflora - medium
Viburnum carlesii 'Compactum' - medium
Clethra alnifolia 'Ruby Spice' - short
Clethra alnifolia Hummingbird' - short
Daphne odora Variegata - short
Daphne burkwodii? Carol Mackie' - short
Calycanthus floridus - sort of short
Weigela florida 'Variegata nana' - short

My humble urban yard and it's mixed border. Prunus sargentii is the tree in bloom with nootkatensis 'Green Arrow' in the foreground and a Cornus kousa on the left. The grasses are Little Bluestem not yet cut down after winter. Not seen in this spring pic are the iris, daylilies, Russian sage and a few other perennials. Low growing conifers to consider would be Picea pungens 'St. Mary's Broom', Picea orientalis 'Bergman's Gem', and Picea Abies 'St. James'. A bit larger would be Abies lasciocarpa 'Compacta' and Abies concolor 'Compacta'. I agree to the above in picking the conifers first, then fill in...and no straight lines.

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tj

my viburnum carlessii compactum is no so compact only had it a few years and it looks like it will be more than "medium"