Planting bed and house entry ideas - opinions welcome
So this will be the third time in 7 years that I have decided to "nuke" my planting bed and try again. I'm fairly happy with the other plants in this section. Bushes and trees I can handle. Flowers? It's a crap shoot. And before I spend another $200+ dollars at the local nursery, I figured I'd get the opinion of some (non-biased) experts. (FYI, zone 3).
The area to fill is basically a quarter-circle, from the paver rocks to the ceramic planter. It gets morning and early afternoon sun, but eventually gets shade from the house by 3pm. In theory, I could fill in the entire mulched area under the maple with "stuff", but seems a bit extreme. It also wouldn't match the rest of our front yard, as it's almost all bushes and mulch, and basically no planting beds. So in to the uplight is about as far as I think it should go.
Here is my not-at-all-experienced attempt at a layout: a ground cover (emerald pink phlox?) would cover the first foot in from the sidewalk. The hostas (which are already bought and placed in no real order in the picture) would be the middle row of plants, with a third row of plants behind those (may night sage?). As I perused the web for hosta pictures, I ran into a disturbing trend: hostas tend to be part of a mosaic of flowers, all mixed together, as opposed to a solid zig-zag line all in a row. I know it's also good to add ferns for texture contrast, but they don't tend to do well except in full shade, which this isn't. So while I'm constantly stuck in the "3 rows of stuff in a quarter circle" layout, any other ideas are welcome.
Side note 1: you'll notice a question mark on a green bush. I can't tell you what this thing is, but it grows in strange directions and is generally a pain to keep looking good. If you want to suggest replacements for this, be my guest. I already ripped another one out, which brings me to...
Side note 2: you'll also notice a green circle. This is where the other bush used to be. I was going to add a wichita blue juniper here, and trim the heck out of it to keep it under 4', but I was vetoed by multiple people on that one. If you feel like suggesting a completely different type of plant/bush here, feel free.
Thanks,
Mark
Comments (11)
8 years agoRelated Discussions
Need help creating privacy. Opinions very welcome.
Comments (9)I'd tear out that green thing that is up against the corner of your house. Can't quite tell what it is, but it's growing out over towards the window to avoid competing with the other green shrub at the corner of your house. Don't need two things there, so if you can salvage it, move the shrub, or just edit it out. That will give you some breathing space. Then you can create a shrub border to block the view, or a low scalloped fence mixed with tall plants, whatever. But first clear out that corner so you have a clean slate. Seems like those plants are too close to the house anyway. Maybe look at some landscaping books to find some idea photos for what looks good as a fence border or a shrub border. There are lots of options, but it takes some finagling. I have a lot of landscaping books with pictures, photos, plants and instructions, so I'm sure you can find what you need. But anyway, my two cents is to just clear out that corner, those plants don't seem to fit there anyway, its a placement issue....See MoreFinally settled on house plans, would welcome any thoughts or ideas
Comments (25)Again, why not build a house where you can actually age in place. You're healthy now but who knows what life can throw at you. When my Mom was 54, she and my Dad sold their colonial house and instead bought a 1 story ranch. My mother loved colonials, so I asked her why she was buying a ranch house. She replied, "I'm not getting any younger and I want a house I can age in because we never know." This was a woman who went to the gym 5x a week, ran around, ate healthy, never smoked, kept her weight down, etc. The only step was a step up from the separate family room to the main part of the house. Then at age 72, my Mom developed Parkinson's disease. She still managed to drive, go to the gym 5x a week, etc, for many years but at around age 78 she developed a sore that wouldn't heal on her ankle and she was told to stop exercising until it healed. That was the start of my Mom's decline. However, because she had planned to age in place she was able to continue to live in her house until the last few months of her life. But I will tell you that one step up from the family room and the curb in her shower became like climbing Mt. Everest to her. What will YOU do when you can no longer climb those stairs in your house or even get yourself up over the threshold since you have no place planned for even an elevator? You actually have the land to create a one story house unlike most of us who live on smaller plots....See MoreElevation Thoughts! Opinions/comments welcome!
Comments (53)I know that there is a lot of discussion about the location of laundry rooms. I grew up in a house with the laundry room right next to the kitchen, and that was fairly innovative for the time the house was built in our area where laundries were typically in the basement or in a room near the garage. In my own places I've had to put laundries in two of them, the previous owners used a common laundry facility or the laundromat. I have had three different locations 1) off the master bedroom in a large walk in closet 2) in the kitchen 3) in the basement (currently) In each case location was dictated by where it would fit best. I think there are pros and cons to each. In the house I grew up in, while laundry was done regularly by my mother, when I was little there was a baby sitter who also got paid to iron because everything in my house got ironed at that point. Later there was a cleaning lady who did sheets towels and blankets as a part of her job, and as my mother became increasingly disabled it was good to have the laundry off the kitchen because she literally came downstairs in the morning and did not go upstairs all day long if she was home alone, her mobility was very limited. So off the kitchen was great, she could do laundry next to the two rooms she spent the most time in, the kitchen and the library. (The cleaning lady also set the ironing board up in the library next to the laundry room so she could watch TV while she ironed, which took hours) When I had mine in the master bedroom closet, honestly it was very convenient, but on the other hand things rarely ever got fully put away, because it was all right there, dirty clean, everything. For me it got sort of disorganized, and if I wanted to iron shirts or something, I didn't want to iron in the closet. So I dunno, that location was okay because the laundry was done where it was generated but it became very disorganized for us. In the kitchen, the benefit to this was you had to do it and put it away, and you would rarely do a washer load and then forget to put it in the dryer or to start the dryer. Other than that I did not like it right in the kitchen. Ours will currently stay in the basement because the rest of the house isn't laid out for it to go anywhere else but I don't think it will bother me too much. If I was able to put it anywhere I would probably put it in a separate laundry room near the kitchen if my house was big enough to do so. For us the current convention of having it closest to the bedrooms was not optimal for us in terms of keeping things organized....See MoreI need a welcoming entry that still maintains privacy.
Comments (17)Oooooo..I like your ideas. Thanks for thinking about it all! The bricks are not integral but are a dominant part of the rest of the landscape so I don't think a new stone would be good. Dry stacked would suit the terrain but alas these is an acre of red brick planters and paths out back.Horizontal wood over the bricks? parallel to new pavers? The steel planter....don't these get hot? Thank you again. Cheers...See MoreRelated Professionals
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PRO8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago- 8 years ago
8 years ago- 8 years ago
All, thanks for the feedback and suggestions.
The Japanese Maple is definitely a crap shoot. :) There are some in the neighborhood that are growing fine after 5+ years, and others that have been removed. This is our second. I've debated about putting in an Eastern Redbud, but really love the all-year red color of the maple. If it makes it over 3 years, it's worth it.
Yardvaark, I truly don't have a lust for gardening. :) I'd rather be engineering the wall/fence structure in our backyard, but first things first. I just want to try and get this right for once. I'm definitely going to add a few bags of peat moss before I plant anything. Our soil has a fair amount of clay in it.
I confirmed that my particular hostas "should" do OK in part sun, better than most. But I'm still tempted to instead put them into the full-shade area in our backyard. I'm also considering putting upright boxwoods where I thought I might put junipers (see attached pic). I'm definitely not going to do more than a flowering groundcover and the hostas (if I do them at all.) I agree that I don't
want too busy, and most pics I have found with hostas are decidedly
busy. I'm going to go phlox shopping this weekend. Should be fun.Thanks!
8 years ago- 8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago
- PRO
- 8 years ago
maidinmontana