Hi, MeMo. It's so nice to hear from you. This is the first time I've visited this gallery in a few months, and what a surprise it was to see this post right on top and your recent post added to it. I'm always interested to see what hollyhocks I have each year, as they are never the same twice. If they are good, I'll throw another picture up on this thread. Meanwhile, Hollyhock, Hollyhock, Oh Holly, Holly, Holly ... TM

Doesn't sound like the problem is too much sun because I know holly trees are very dense and probably keep your raised bed in total shade. Probably not a PH issue either, since both the Lamium and Pulmonaria prefer a slightly acidic soil, which you likely have under your holly tree. Sounds like a soil problem. Evenly moist but well-drained soil is really important for both Lamium and Pulmonaria, so I'm wondering what the soil moisture is like in your raised bed. Was this bed prepped with compost at all before you planted? "Evenly moist but well-drained" sounds like a contradiction, but it just means keeping the soil not sopping wet, but, at the same time, the soil should not be allowed to dry out completely at all. Not too wet, not too dry. A good way to test if your soil is evenly moist or not is to grab a handful of soil and squeeze it into a ball. If water comes out when you squeeze, the soil is too wet. If it completely crumbles and doesn't form a ball at all, it's too dry. What you want is a soil where, if you take the handful of soil and squeeze tightly, the soil will form into a ball, but if you poke your finger into the ball, the ball will fall apart. The best way to help your soil become more evenly moist is not necessarily watering more or less, but by amending the soil with an organic compost. Over time the addition of compost will improve the soil drainage, and it will also help the soil retain even moisture. More watering or the addition of fertilizer will just not have the same effect...the millions of little microbes in the compost is what helps the soil. Since your Lamium and Pulmonaria are already planted, I would just side dress the bed with compost. A side dressing of compost will also act like a mulch and help to keep the soil cool. This will help both these plants which prefer a cool soil. If you didn't add compost to the bed before planting, and a side dressing doesn't work, you may need to amend the soil in the entire bed with compost. This is a more drastic step, and I would ask someone on the "Soil, Compost and Mulch" forum about the best time of year and method for a full bed amendment. For more info on "side dressing" see the link below. Here is a link that might be useful: Soil, Compost and Mulch forum: Side Dressing

I realize that is not the correct cultivar for that spot, but it was planted by the builder in 1962. It is too beautiful to remove, if you had only seen it before it had been butchered. I love this tree so much I had the police out here! They didn't dare touch my cornus florida which is about 3 inches from the power lines. I would like to have a 'natchez' there but I just can bring myself to get rid of this one. That tree has gotten me awards (yard of the month) in the past years. Now, it looks like a piece of crap from the road. Crepe myrtles are very sturdy, I have never seen one fall. It has survived some really bad ice storms that caused some other trees in the area to split in pieces. This crepe myrtle will never have it's beautiful widespread canopy again thanks to those unsympathetic jackasses.

I may be repeating myself, but keep in mind that we're not working with an ideal situation. The windows are too close together to squeeze a tree in front of and between them without it seeming as if it was a wedge pounded into a crack. Nevertheless, the scene can be improved by improving the maintenance (trimming.) I would definitely remove the end shrubs. Having them exceed the wall length looks like someone didn't "cut the trim the right length." It is as if a baseboard were longer than the wall it was attached to. You don't need to cut the hollies lower so long as you have them a little lower than the finished product, and it looks like they are. Keep in mind, since they are a plant that will grow substantially larger than the space allotted for them (the space below the windows), the only practical way to finish them is with continued shearing. Basically, you will be sculpting a hedge with hedge-trimmers and then sculpting it again every time it puts out a few inches of new growth. There are too many conditions working against you to maintain it as a natural finish hedge with a looser look. You have the option to cut the shoulders of the hedge crispy "square" or rounded. Either way looks good though each creates its distinct flavor. You'd want to coordinate this flavor throughout the foundation planting and not mix it up. Another feature of properly trimmed shrubs/hedges is that their side will slope outward so that they are widest at the bottom. They can be straight, but this neither looks as good or lets the bottom of them receive as much light. They can never be trimmed so that the bottom is narrower than the top (which is how almost everyone does it!!!) because they will lose their bottom foliage, due to it being shaded, and become bare at the bottom, as if a hedge or shrub on stilts, which is very ugly. Without question, you must clean up the canopy of the crape myrtle by cutting off all branches and foliage which hang down below a certain line. Usually, this would be over one's head. If the foliage is hanging down below the windows (including a few inches of clearance) then the arbitrary line at which it was cut is too low. I'm not talking about cutting the crape at the top, but removing what hangs down below the red dashed line. It would look a bunch tidier and more organized to clean this up. If you are pollarding the crapes every year, a good height above grade at which to cut their tops prior to early spring, is 9'. A given situation might call for a different measurement, but 9' is a good average. After the new top grows it will hang down a little below this, leaving and 8' ceiling, which will work for most situations. If you want to add more interest with a flowering or colored foliage perennial that is lower than the hedge, place it at the ends of the hedges/shrubs, not in front of them. Let it protrude forward of the hedges. Then fill in the foreground solid with a lower groundcover. You already have the Liriope. I'd just split that up and redistribute it over the whole area ... solid, not as a cute edging.