Need Help/Suggestions for Redesigning Front Garden
I'm looking for some advice with regards to my front garden. I planted and expanded my front garden several years ago with a hodgepodge of perennial flowers/shrubs my MIL gave me. The two spruces came with the house. I enjoyed it when everything was spacious and small, but now I'm looking for a change...less flowers and more flowering shrubs and bushes. I initially found a layout online that I thought would work with the plants I received, but over the years as the garden has grown, it started to resemble an English garden (which although lovely, is not quite the right 'fit' for the house).
For reference, I would like to point out that I live in Southwestern Ontario (Canada) and fall into Zone 6 (althoug a local nursery claims we are closer to Zone 5). I'm looking for shrub/tree suggestions that look great Spring/Summer/Fall and still provide some visual interest in winter amongst the snow. I will also note that I am not interested in continuing the garden down the length of the driveway because we often have 7ft snowbanks in winter and pile the snow along the rest of the driveway.
The flowers that are currently in the garden are:
'Nanho Blue' Butterfly Bush/'Pink Delight' Butterfly Bush/'Magnus' Purple Coneflower/Maidengrass x2/'Paprika' Yarrow (reddish) x3/'Rozanne' Geranium (purple)/'Redshift' Tickseed x2/Russian Sage x6/Smokebush/Burning Bushx1/Barberry Bush (purple)/
Alberta(?) Spruce x2.
Anything I do not reuse will get relocated to our backyard or back to MIL.
I would like to move to a more simple design that requires minimal care (I have kidney disease that causes a lot of front/back pain and makes it difficult to bend...2x/month maintenance would be perfect). I was thinking of relocating the spruce on the left to the backyard because it's blocking the window (and it's completely dead on the other side (what we see from our living room). On the far left of the picture, there is a larger lilac hiding behind the red maple.
As for the new garden, I was also thinking about adding a mix of, or all of the following:
*Laceleaf Weeping Japanese Red Maple, 'Crimson Queen' x1 (would also consider 'Butterfly')
*Boxwood 'Green Velvet'
*Spirea Goldflame
*Spirea Goldmound (lime)
*Evergreen Azaleas 'Crimson' or 'Flame Creeper'
*Barberry Bush (keep it, but maybe move it to another location in garden?) x1
*Burning Bush (keep, but moe it to another location in garden?) x1
*Spruce (in front of porch) x1
*Coral Bells- Heuchera ‘Caramel’ or 'Midnight'
*'Table Top' or 'Blue Star Juniper x2 OR 'Blue Rug' or 'Green Mound' (to go under Japenese Maple)
I would really like to add both spireas and boxwoods.
So, this is where I'm stuck/overwhelmed and need advice, specifically regarding if the new plants/trees I am thinking of purchasing are a good choice (and if not, what would you suggest) as well as plant location and quantity. I also want to point out that once all plants are removed, we are raking out the mulch and adding more topsoil to creat a raised bed; the plastic trim will also be removed and sufficient edging will happen. I also do not want to block our windows too much as our cat loves to look out the windows all day and when the current garden blooms in Spring/Summer she can only see out of 1/4 windows. Again, Im looking for plants that will highlight the garden for all 4 seasons.
I cannot wait to hear your suggestions!
Comments (7)
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4 years agoErin Stewart-Guilfoil
4 years agoErin Stewart-Guilfoil
4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
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