I don't have any suggestions, but just wanted to say what a pretty place! How lucky you are to live in the country.

Marianne

We have several live oak trees in our back yard. It doesn't look like you have live oaks though.

My yard is tiny, but we do have some st Augustine grass. I gave up the beds under the trees due to roots. I just couldn't get stuff to grow there and there was constant battle with those sucker things. Now we've let the grass grow right up to the tree trunks.

In order to have any grass or flower beds at all, we've learned that we have to trim up the limbs on the trees and keep then thinned. It still provides shade but allows lots of light in.

I can't imagine how you'd rake a cottage garden though. :)

You could make some stone, or brick pathways, include a few seating areas here and there, and just have a scattering of well defined beds, so you aren't trying to maintain huge beds. It might make it easier to maintain. Concentrate on one bed at a time. Rotate each week which bed to weed and plant in using smaller chunks of time. You'd still get it all done, but wouldn't be so over whelmed THE WHOLE YARD at once syndrome.

Looks like you have several nice areas to work with though!

We have hundreds of Oaks...aren't they wonderful!
By raking all the leaves into piles and mowing them over a couple of times, you can enrich your soil with very little effort. Fortunately, they only shed once a year. Not much of a mess and they make great winter mulch.

The red brick wall can help create a warm 'microclimate' and an excellent backdrop!

(1.) You mention having moss. We have wonderful clumps of moss growing in a half acre stand of Oaks. It gets enough sun for a few wildflowers and very sparse grass - does this sound similar to your conditions? If so, is this the area you want to try and plant out?

(2.) What are the conditions in the area near the house where you really want a cottage garden? At what time of day does it get full sun, especially important for the summer. You can put in a few perennials with lots of seeded annuals if the sun is right!

Thanks for the replies, all.

Marianne, it is nice living in the country. We love it and really dislike even going to Dallas or other large cities now! We're close enough to some towns to easily get our shopping done but not in the hub of activity. It suits us well. :)

Melvalena, the oaks are pin oaks. And I do like oaks - they're really great trees. There are 8 or 9 in the front pretty close to the fence so there are a lot of leaves from them. Some of the roots are close to the surface and some peek through. I even trip on them now and then and I think roots are responsible for our walkway at the end by the gate breaking up and falling apart. That's yet another project - replacing that walkway. I'm considering some kind of ground cover all along that front fence line where the trees are. The roses and daffs there don't do much at all and might be better off moved to another spot and replaced with ground cover, even mondo grass. It might help cover the roots some and at least give it a greener appearance. I'm not sure which one to use and am researching several.

The last two pictures show my spindly thin gardenia (hmm, what's wrong with her?) and the daffodils that are just about finished blooming.

I'm considering using a mold we got for the walkway and using the same mold to create a circle in the middle of the yard. The mold isn't a small one and the interior of the circle is where I might plant some things for the cottage garden sort of feel. Maybe in well defined areas as you suggested. The area has some shade from those oaks but it's mostly sunny and yep, the leaves are an issue. I even thought about making a circle of sunflowers! I think those would grow there nicely and it would certainly take up some of the bare space! lol

Jacquelyn, see above reply to Melvalena about the area where I'd like the cottage garden. The moss we have only was there because of the leaves, I think! Normally there isn't much moss around here though right under those pin oaks it stays pretty cool and often damp. Not in the throes of summer, though! About 3/4 of the area where I want the little cottage garden gets full sun in the summer from about 10 AM til about 4 PM. The other area, which is shown in the first picture gets no full sun because of the shade of the trees. That area is hot but not in full sun. What perennials might do well here? And what seeded annuals? I haven't much luck yet planting anything! What's there now is what was here when we bought the place.

Ditto on trimming those bottom limbs on the trees up to the first major "Y"...will mean less leaves next year too.

Your leaves will not be so overwhelming if you can keep up with them. Waiting till they all fall off to get them up will do two things. One..make WAY too much work..and Two..kill the grass under them from lack of air/light and the gasses that come off rotting leaves.

If you have a mower with a catcher, you can "vaccum" them up as they fall...once a week or so when they start falling. This will work best when you have grass growing. Will be kinda hard on dirt, but better than leaving them on the ground to kill off what grass there is.

Good luck...you have a great place to work with!

Your property looks like it has great potential! You're lucky to have such nice trees.

What if--for now--you just forgot about trying to grow grass or anything under the trees and put down a thin layer of shredded wood mulch? It would look nice right away and form a crust on top that should allow you to blow the leaves off when they drop in the fall. Eventually, the mulch will decompose, improving the soil under the trees enough so that when you're ready you could plant some kind of ground cover. Check with the towns near you and see if any has a landfill that sells (or gives away) mulch.

If you divide up your property into outdoor 'rooms', thinking about how you want to use each space and just deal with one area at a time, the whole job will be more manageable--and you'll see some real progress with each area you finish. Start with the area right beside your house, if that's what you're most concerned with.

You could define the perimeter of each garden 'room' with planting beds. Inside those beds you could either put down a hard surface or improve the soil enough that you can plant grass in it. If you chop up the leaves you have, you can use them to create the planting beds lasagna style. (Do a search for that term here on the forums if you're not familiar with the process.)

I'd suggest that you start by drawing a few plans on paper, then use garden hose or rope to lay out the areas so you can picture the way it will be. Paying attention to what kind of light you get in each area before you plant it should help prevent expensive mistakes.

Have fun with your project!

You have what most of us would call a clean slate and that is a good thing, so much fun to design a garden if you wish to make it a cottage type garden I would look over on the cottage forum they are wonderful people over there and should be of great help.
How much shade do you have in the front yard? From all the trees I'm thinking that this is why your grass won't grow?
It is very easy to get started and so many ways to go about gardening, For starters you could do what some do which with you liking to plant and grow veggies you can have the best of both worlds, that is how it's done in the UK, Europe. If you have access to a library you could maybe check out books on gardening cottage style.
Making tripods for growing beans in the center of a garden of flowers. Also there are companion plants that help's plants out.
If I was able to do a large garden I would surely do it in a heart beat but that's just me :)
Also check out to see if there is a free compost and mulch from the city near you, if you have a truck or any way to haul it I would do this to get started.
Happy gardening

Here is a link that might be useful: cottage gardens - garden web

I am picturing a curving border around the inside of your fence with evergreens in the background and perennials in front. You can use them strategically to soften corners or to block unwanted views from your house. I would start by getting it cleaned up a bit like the others suggested. Heck, those weeds can probably be tilled into the soil where they will eventually decompose and attract worms. How about starting with a few background plants this year, then fill in with smaller shrubs, perennials, etc. over the next year or so. The first thing I thought of was a Nellie R. Stevens holly. These can grow to about 15 feet wide and 20 feet tall, are evergreen and would be perfect to fill out a corner of your property. They don't mind shade either. Since your trees look like they're deciduous, it would get sun in the winter months. Arborvitae would also be a nice, large background evergreen. Even a winter honeysuckle might be nice a long the fence. It is a large rounded shrub that blooms in January/February with sweet smelling blooms. Lower evergreen shrubs alternated between the larger ones could be dwarf yaupons, dwarf wax myrtle, dwarf glossy abelia, etc. Place your lower growing shrubs in groupings - not all scattered out. Like you would want to put a grouping of maybe 3 or 5 dwarf yaupons along the fence in one area, then repeat them in one or two more areas. Alternate the groupings for repetition, texture and balance. In front of all these evergreen shrubs is where you will have fun filling in with perennials. If you want a list of more plants that would probably do well in your yard, check out Texas Smartscape. It is mainly for North Central Texas, but many of the plants also do well in East Texas. The link is below. Just go to the plant search database and make your selections and then click on search.

Here is a link that might be useful: Texas Smartscape