ev, your thread is confusing. i want to help but i can't tell if you're asking about 1, 2 or 3 different areas. could you reorganize your question? and are you just looking for shrubs, or perennials too?
best,
mindy

Thanks. Reading back, I can see it is confusing.

This is one area.

It is the west side of the house.

There are newly installed overhanging eves that do not allow much water to the back side of the garden right near the outer wall of the house.

It is a long, narrow garden.

I would consider shrubs as garden anchors if there is something compact that blossoms for much of the growing season. It would have to work in a narrow space. The snow avalances caused by the new eves would smash the bushes otherwise.

I will also require perrennials that do well in dry soil even if there are shrubs I can use.

This is for planting towards the back part of this narrow garden, so they have to be taller. I have the shorter perennials and annuals towards the front of the garden. The front section of the garden does get some water regularly.

If anyone knows where to get one of those extending brooms, I could use that to resolve some of the winter problem caused by the new eves, re: roof avalanches.

Hmmm...I'm thinking sedum? I love matrona/frosty morn/purple postman. All of those are great. Also google "xeriscaping"...rumor has it that hydrangea limelight (once established) can handle droughty spots. GL!

I saw this recently in an Improvements catalog;

{{gwi:1087551}}
Lightweight 16' Snow Rake

Searching for snow rake or roof rake gets you some more products.

Claire

Thanks! I just ordered the roof rake from Ebay, now that I know what it is called. It is off season, so I got a great price, including the shipping.

Hydrangea where my old "anchor" for this garden. I moved them out because they were not doing well at all. They are doing wonderfully in their new spot. They are still a lot of work though. I have to mulch them and wrap them for the winter season or they do not blossom. It is that blossoms on the old wood thing.

Sedum might work if I keep the plants that are forward well trimmed. Right now, the plants in front are all about two feet tall. There is not much behind them to see. :-: Perhaps the variegated variety would add some interest since this a red brick house. Ones with colorful foleage would be good, but I am not having much luck finding any seeds online.

I do have one variegated sedum. Perhaps I can collect the seed from that and hope that they come true.

Evonnestoryteller....

I never wrap hydrangea. I have Oakleaf, Annabelle, Endless Summer and All Summer's Beauty. They bloom every year. I did have some that never bloomed for me, but these have done so three years running with no special attention beyond mulching which I do to the whole bed anyway and making sure they get at least 2 inches of rain/water during the growing season.

As for using Sedum in the location you asked about, it sounds like that location doesn't get that much sun. Would it be more than 4 hrs? I have tried a few times to grow them in 4 hrs and they end up leggy and flopping. Also doesn't sound like a back of the border plant.

If it is a narrow space, have you considered some sort of structure and grow clematis on them? Just another direction to consider.

pm2

Your slightly warmer zone might make a big difference in the branch die back. I had all the branches where I live die back to the ground a couple years in a row on the hydrangea. That is when I started wrapping them. Now they blossom every year. If we get one of our infamous ice storms, they just don't make it. We usually get about one good ice storm every year.

The area at the very back of the garden gets sun from about 4 o'clock PM on. The front of the garden has black eyed susans, shasta daisy and a few other perennials that are doing well. I have a few dahlias scattered in but they are all leaning toward the front of the garden. Usually I plant nicotiana in the back. I did plant it there this year but it is stunted from the dryness. Usually the nicotiana grows to be over two feet tall with lots of flowers.

I don't think I could add much structure right along the house for the clematis.

I think you could also easily root cuttings of the sedum. This seems to have happened with sedum that I threw on the compost pile.

I have a similar spot with a problem with roof avalanches. Besides perennials, subshrubs or things that are coppiced would work. Anything that would reasonably be cut down in the spring.

For perennials, you might want to look at some of the western natives that just won't grow in a normal spot. Gaura, agastaches, echinops - things like that. They will overwinter on my dry hill, where the shade and overhang are from a white pine instead of a house.

You don't mention how much width you're talking about. If you are looking to plant under the eaves of the house, you're better off moving the entire garden forward, away from the side of the house - better for the plants and for the house.

It sounds like you already have some tall plants in this garden, so you might just call that the back row and build forward.

As you mentioned in your post, most shrubs have a short bloom period; that's why mixed beds work so well, with something always in bloom. You need some width to accomplish that, though!

Most of PM2's hydrangeas (Annabelle, Endless Summer and All Summer's Beauty) are ones that I grow, and I'm colder than you are. The trick is that they all bloom on new wood, and so will bloom regardless of how cold the winter is without needing to be wrapped as long as the plants are root-hardy. I have Annabelle in a similar situation, in front of and under the eaves of the house where the snow comes down on them (we raked the roof 3 times last winter since we had about 120" of snow!). After a winter like last one, I just cut them to the ground and let them regrow, while in a less snowy winter I leave them. When pruned they have fewer (but huge) blooms. In the summer the location tends to be a bit dry, and I almost never water, but they seem to do OK and in a drier situation a soaker hose under mulch wouldn't require too much water from the well or a rain barrel.

The garden covers the cement foundation. Due to the roof snow slide, the garden cannot be moved forward. I originally thought I would be able to widen the garden so that is a disappointment. No one knew the new roof eves would cause such forceful slides.

I am not considering hydrangeas under the roof overhang because of the water they typically require. You are correct, the hydrangea I did have there blossomed on old wood. Had I the opportunity to purchas hydrangeas again, I would surly get a different kind that require less work. For some reason, I really do not like to wrap them.

I get home pretty late for a photo shot showing the stunted plants in back and all the taller plants in front. Taller plants used to grow in the back as well. It will have to be the weekend. I will measure it too. I am guessing that it is a foot at the thinner areas and perhaps a foot and a half at the wider areas of the garden.

I read up on sedum seeds. They look like dust. Lol. Perhaps I can spread the spent blossoms in the back of the garden and see if anything happens.

Somewhere I have two copies of a book showing the right pants for the right garden conditions. I cannot seem to locate even once copy in my huge book collection!

I meant plants...

the right plants for the right garden conditions.

:-D

I saw some large pots of sedum, Autumn Joy today. I purchased three of them and took up your advice to try sedum in the back of the bed. I split the plants into reasonable sizes and filled in the empty areas of the bed. So far so good! It looks much nicer. I will have to see how they come back and how well they spread out. The sedum elsewhere in the yard really spread quickly.

Autumn Joy is on the tall side. Next year, I will be better about trimming the front of the bed(hopefully).

hmmmm,pm2, if we don't wrap our macrophyllas, they don't bloom. tokyo delight, nikko blue.... because of bud freeze.

evonne, i love the pants/plants typo. typos can make for a lot of laughs! I think nhbabs' advice is the best for you as she shares your roof snow situation.
best,
mindy

" Due to the roof snow slide, the garden cannot be moved forward. I originally thought I would be able to widen the garden so that is a disappointment. No one knew the new roof eaves would cause such forceful slides."

Evonne -You really can widen the garden under an area where there are heavy roof slides. You just need to choose your plants thoughtfully, as Mad Gallica says above. I have Annabelle, Penny Mac, and Endless Summer hydrangeas, bulbs, perennials (including mums, iris, hollyhocks, primroses, etc, etc), type 3 clematis which gets trimmed back severely every spring regardless of how much snow we've had, spirea, which I learned from George (EGO) on this forum can be severely pruned. The thing they all have in common is that either they die back in the fall, like the perennials, or they bloom on new wood and don't mind severe pruning (to 6") in the spring. You might have a couple of weeks in the spring where the foundation is visible, but most of the year it would either be covered by plants or by snow.

Plants that haven't fared well that I've tried: some rhododendrons with stiff branches (though I do have a huge, ancient probably roseum elegans that does just fine even with large quantities of heavy snow raked onto it without much in the way of broken branches.) Probably any other shrub that blooms on old wood or has stiff branches would not do well.

I have a bunch of early, midseason, and late bulbs in these gardens as well as some iron trellises for the clematis and early perennials to distract from the bare areas (after I've pruned in bad snow years) for the couple of weeks until these shrubs start pushing out new growth. I don't have to prune every year however. One of these gardens fills the area between the drive and the two main entries of our house, and the other is the front garden next to the main entry of our shop, so both need to look good. The beds are both close to 10' deep (from the building.) The buildings they are next to include both one and two story areas of the house, and the massive, barn-like shop, so need the depth and height in plants to balance the building size.

Also, Mad Gallica suggests western plants . . . Most prairie and western perennials do just fine with (or prefer) dry situations once established: penstemmons and western agastaches, among others.

Happy planting - hope this has helped.

We actually get more ice than snow where I live. Certain plants don't survive because they don't really get that protective covering of snow I am told. Heathers are one plant I would love to grow, but they end up being a lot of trouble to protect for the winter here.

I suppose my main concern, although I call them snowslides, is ice. The snow holds back on the roof and turns to ice. That is how I am hoping the roof rake helps somewhat. The slides not only appear to be dangerous, but it also compresses the lawn due to the weight. When we get an icy slide, and there is not a significant amount of snow covering yet, the ice actually bites right into the lawn.

There is no difficulty with the lawn coming back. We have had heavy construction equipment move across our property and make those compressions and the ground fluffs back up over time and the grass grows. I am concerned that the bulbs and other underground roots may not take to that much compression though.

Sorry to be pesky. :) I am planning on redoing the stones at some point, so perhaps I will ease them out to see what happens little by little.

{{gwi:1087552}}

I found my ice photos! Here is one showing how the ice forms in a big curl about a foot off the eves edges! It builds up like that for a long time and we even see it getting longer though the windows. It is a pretty amazing amount of ice and then suddenly it drops!!!

Prayer is required to back the car out of the garage in hopes of good timing.

I was hopeful that the sedum would look nice this summer in the back edge. The well went and there is now not only ice plunged into the ground, but there is a tunnel right through the garden. I broke and dug up the top edges of the garden myself and put that aside, but this is going to be open for a lot of weeks now. With the cold temps, I don't think so many plants will make it.

We had a major ice storm this winter too and we lost power for four days. So many trees toppled over, I could not leave the area. Then the power company restored our power without respairing the ground wire that was broken. That caused major damage to many expensive appliances and electronics in the home.

BLEH!

I can't wait for summer anyway.

:)

this observation may be totally irrelevant to your situation. Old New Enganders, and some new ones, in heavy snow areas install spikes which are specifically designed to prevent snows slides. My husband says they pre-date gutters. I sorry to add to your anxieties, but a ton of snow slid off a barn roof across from us, onto smallish care and totaled it.

I google around and see what I can find out.
marie

google snow guards. There's lots of options, which all seem to variations on a theme. I also found one that explained the physics of snowslides. I watched the roof on the barn across the street as the snow unloaded. Wow! Huge noise when each section of snow fell off. I wondered if this was the same physical dynamic as as avalanche...and/or an iceberg? Why don't you double check your warranty and contract for the gutters and see if the contractor carries any liablility. At least call him and tell him what's going on. It might save someone else your misery. Do be careful under the icicles.
Marie

I planted dahlias at the back edge. I got them on a huge end of the season sell but they are very pretty. They are miniatures.

The good news is they all came back! There are apparently some advantages to a dry back edge!

Your attic may need more insultation. Ice formation on the roof is usually due to heat loss from under your roof melting the snow from the bottom up. I had that problem years ago when we first bought this house, seem to remember that being DH fix of the problem was more insulation.
Dahlias that returned?? Oh I am jealous!!

It is not the attic. We have especially good ventilation, insulation and special architectural shingles on the roof. We get ice storms, and it just hangs up there. Thanks for the thought though! I am sure it will help someone who is in a more snow than ice area.

We had the ice guards installed. They are nice brass ones that should turn that nice green over time.

Evonnestoryteller, thanks for posting these follow up messages. It's always nice to hear how something turned out. The news about your dahlias returning is very cool!

I can't tell you how lucky I am to have purchased a roof rake way back when you guys told me to!!! Now they are $100 and you have to wait a few weeks for them to arrive. I am one of the lucky few in my area this year to already own one.