Suggestions for Z5 old fashioned farmhouse shrubs pls :-)
Janice (Z5a, Chicagoland)
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
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gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
8 years ago
lisanti07028
8 years agoRelated Discussions
Too my symmetry to my farmhouse?
Comments (9)Just curious ... How much ground is this house situated on? First recommendation: Break yourself of the habit of thinking that your primary role as your own designer is to plant plants. Your thinking "family home" and "farmhouse", "country" and "pulled together". Great goal. Keep it as a constant touchstone. Let it help you move away from thinking that a few perennials and annuals are going to resolve your design objectives. Farmhouse, country, honoring a tradition?, pulled together. What needs to be kept, or stripped away, added or subtracted or re-oriented in order to better accomplish your vision? A friend of mine has the loveliest farmhouse porch IÂve ever visited. ItÂs pretty simple. She has the space for two large rockers and an old carved church pew. I hear her talk about different ways she marks the seasons with her door wreaths, something she enjoys creating. She also gets tons of mileage for the re-use of an old water trough complete with pump handle. SheÂs turned it into a planter and itÂs where she tries different annual displays each year. But thatÂs it as far as foundation planting. The trough is a few feet in front of one side of the porch. Other shrubs, as described above, are located away from the foundation. I think she told me she is considering a climbing rose on a trellis at one corner of her porch, but thatÂs because itÂs one of the few places where she feels a rose might do well. I say itÂs lovely, because of the number of times a group of us have gathered there. ThereÂs a feel to it. Nothing fussy. Yet I constantly hear others oooh and ahhh over the setting. So I guess IÂm assuming it works somehow. My point is that symmetry isnÂt the issue. Someone above suggested balance. I think thatÂs right, but even before that I think you need to give yourself permission to do something different from what youÂve been persuaded is "right". Why did you plant these symmetrical beds? What if your house, and the porch, and the approach to your porch is better served by thinking differently about what, where, and whether to plant anything?...See MoreHelp me select a rose for my 'old' farmhouse
Comments (17)You've told me so much and you know the things you need to know. Like ignore all the "fertilize with K and P annually". In Knoxville, at the University, Ione planted a tea noisette, Duchesse de Auerstadt, in river loam about 100 yards from the Tennessee River. (I grow a clone of that, several hundred feet higher and in tight red clay. You'd think they were different roses, but they-from the same supplier- are in different microclimates and soils.) You are in the heat 'island' that is the Nashville Basin. Your soils are self fertilizing but for the N. If I were you, I'd collect Tea Noisettes and make the most bodaceously beautiful rose fence in Tennessee. I might even be tempted to put a few Hybrid Perpetuals in for splashes of red-purple color. Foget the once bloomers. With your water conditions, with the nutrients that are in your river soils, the only thing you need to do is work to keep your pH in the zone where the K and P aren't tied up as salts and stay available to your roses' roots. That you don't have abundant cedar, BTW, tells me that you don't have a lot of limestone anywhere near the surface. In my fields I can almost tell you where there are subterranean limestone remnants under the soils. Even the cedar seeds don't sprout in my red clay. As for trees to tolerate in your fenceline: yes to dogwoods and redbuds- they aren't that bad. No to almost everything else. In your soils with ground water, you may find ten to fifteen years of vertical growth each year. This year we are sufferening the ones we didn't cut back last fall and that loved the inch a week of rain we had all of last year. Kill: all hackberries (they make good firewood). They are the host to wooly hackberry aphids and the aphid poop drops heavily and then gets a black fungus on it and the fungus doesn't wash off. Really ugly when it drops on roses, and everything else. When you get to Knoxville, let me know. I've probably got some suckers you can use. More later, Ann...See MoreIt's not a cottage garden without_____ (revival of an old thread)
Comments (4)This was the thread that helped me put a name to the style of garden that I love best. I have been working towards the cottage style for many years and never get tired of the evolution of it. Loved reading them all again today. Cheryl...See MoreVERY steep hill in backyard...need suggestions pls
Comments (9)The shrubs growing on the slope look that they have been there quite a while and seem to be growing straight up. (Sometimes, if there is a bend like an old-fashioned walking stick handle in the stem near to the ground, that bend can indicate that the land is slumping.) About the tree roots showing: there's not a great deal of topsoil from what I could see so the roots have probably spread out to forage for food and water. A number of tree species have suface roots - some quite gnarled and obvious. Think swamp cypress for a start. Unless the trees are very tall and your local prevailing winds are fierce or unpredictable you aren't likely to get windthrow. On a slope such as yours I'd be looking for grooves cut by runoff from the top as the precursor to shallow gullying - and that didn't seem to be happening. Personally, I wouldn't spend on 'posh plants' for such a slope. I'd ask for 'pioneer-type' shrubs - preferably native to your area. If you have a native plants nursery near you - pick their brains. Grasses, creepers, low-nutrient environment shrubs and sub-shrubs. That soil is obviously not rich - it hasn't been colonised by much at all. If you need clues and there are cuttings at the sides of your roads check there for what will establish and thrive and stay seemly. (No one needs a slope covered in fire risk weeds!) When you visit with the plant place/s ask for SPECIFIC guidance on how to plant up a steep slope. If it has a high clay content - let them know because it will change what they will advise. If there is any better soil available on your lot, and you can spare some - mix it in with the slope soil when planting but don't bother putting in fine compost. All that happens is the plants grow out to the limits of the top grade environment and then either sulk or die. Think about buying your reveg plants in 'root trainer' tubes rather than big cans or baggies. They'll be younger and better equipped to strike out, rootwise. Hear you when you say you're budget-constrained. See if you can legally collect native seedlings of suitable plants, grow them on, then plant out. Sometimes a neighbour can be a good source. Under the bird feeder, in a garden, can be another - but expect a lot of berry-producing plants ;-) And, as the slope is a bit of a challenge - could you devise a ladder to get you upslope for planting? Or a scaffoldiong arrangement. Something with wide enough treads so you don't end up with anguished feet!...See More
Smivies (Ontario - 5b)
8 years agoJanice (Z5a, Chicagoland)
8 years agofloral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
8 years agolisanti07028
8 years agoJanice (Z5a, Chicagoland)
8 years agoJanice (Z5a, Chicagoland)
8 years agoMarie Tulin
8 years ago
Steppskie (5a/b IN)
8 years ago
NHBabs z4b-5a NH
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoadoiron
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoNHBabs z4b-5a NH
8 years agoMarie Tulin
8 years ago
cadillactaste
8 years ago
ilovemytrees
8 years agotete_a_tete
8 years ago
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