OT Landscaping Ideas Needed

My wife and I pulled out all the shrubs up close to the house. Now we need ideas what to decorate that area with. Anyone have some
good ideas? We want to put decorative rock up close to the house now instead of mulch.

Maybe some zinnia's, short sunflowers, marigolds, and a bottle tree or two with a variety of bottles. You can change out the bottles as desired for different seasons. I would keep it short and a little sparse so the house does not stay damp.

I planted ornamental grass. It takes a couple of years to grow tall, but once it does, I think it looks good.

I don't care if you use woodchips, rocks or rubber mulch, which is the best thing if you live in Florida.

The problem with any mulch is dirt will eventually get in there. Not sure exactly how dirt gets there, but long term there will be enough dirt weeds will grow.

I used to use a fabric mulch before putting down P-gravel. I've lived long enough to regret doing that. It's next to impossible to get weeds out of the fabric, especially grab grass. 20 years later, I've ripped up all my fabric mulch along with the dirt and flowers and started over.

My boy just bought a one year old house in Plainfield. His yard has raised areas covered with some kind of product, not sure what, but it's like a blanket that has wood fibers in it.

I use cheap woodchips the tree trimmer drops off and I have all my places termite treated and annual inspection for termites.

Now to answer your question. What you plant is determined by how much sunlight you get.

I ripped out evergreens planted on north side of a rental, covered with woodchips and planted shady plants like, hostas, colubrine, ferns. I don't buy flowers. I have enough flower beds, I just get starts from existing beds.

If you get into flower gardening, you will learn that it easy to grow some new flowers by breaking off stems and planting them in good dirt.

If you read up of woodchips, they are actually a benefit to use. Holds moisture, need less watering, weed control and as they decompose, adds nutrients.

I plan to cover my garden with woodchips this spring after I till in about 20 ton of compost.

So to answer your question, plant what you have and make sure what you plant will grow in the sunlight available.
geo

Of all things least on my mind to plant would be Holly , but, thats what we planted by our back door garden and it is beautiful, lush green with red berries,fills in and is easily trimmed to any shape. It is in Black mulch and looks very nice Bet nobody ever thought of Holly !

My parents planted those danged things way back in the 80s, and I am stuck with them now! These are holly bushes, not trees. I despise those things, but they are pretty.

If you are in termite country make sure you don't put any wood products or dirt up close to any cellulose-based siding products, wooden door sills, etc.. Those termites are sitting down in the soil just waiting for someone to make a bridge for them.

Whatever you put there make sure you use some sort of edge retaining product. The area around my house does not have this and when trying to mow along the edge I pick up mulch. If you use the rubber mulch it gets sucked up the worse. We had some with the fancy rocks and they get sucked up too ! Hard on the blades. We have plastic edging where the pool used to be and the mower has that all chewed up. So far I have not been happy with anything I've tried. It all seems to need a lot of hand work to keep in good shape which ours does not get.

I had them beneath all the windows of my home in SanDiego. Those sharp leave make a better security system than iron bars.

I use a 24" wide strip of concrete. Round up as needed to keep the weeds out of the cracks.

Makes mowing very easy and no trimming needed.

Landscaping has a lot to do with personal choices.As you can see I have only one small bush and tree next to house and they dwarft and will get no bigger than they are now. I don't like spending all the time with flowers and a lot of trimming and doing mulch. As we live less than a 1/4 mile from a marsh I don't want a place for snakes to hide as I have found several laying on back step when I opened door. But luckily they were the friendly kind.

Plant small trees or bushes like Japanese Maples and I like Rose of Sharon's. I love to have perennials blooming all spring, summer and fall. So everything from Tulips, daffodils, hyoscines, all types of irises, and lilies, mums, hibiscus, Russian sage just to mention a few.

I have more flower beds at my place at the south end of the county than most people have yards. I put flowers around all buildings and trees. If you know what to plant, there is no need for a weedwacker. Cuts mowing time down considerably. It takes me 30 minutes to mow around all flower beds with my 48 inch JD and another 40 minutes to mow the rest of the yard with Farmall C with a 72 inch woods belly mower. Total yard space is about 2 acres, minus buildings, drives and the largest part flower beds.

These are just a few pics of flower beds. geo.

For a border along shrub beds consider the 'landscapers trench'. Just need a landscapes shovel and a maintenance now and then. It's as much work as anything else but looks the best. Other borders like bricks, etc. are a trap for weeds and mildew and look like crap after awhile. Mound up your shrub beds to be several inches higher that the surrounding grass, what the pros do.

For plants it is really hard to find something you don't have to rip out every 5 years. A few things that have worked/not worked for us:

- Mugo Pines are slow growing. It took 20 years for them to get any size. If you like evergreens, they are pretty little pine bushes.

- Blue Star junipers are slow growing and attractive

- Red Maple seedlings look great in shrub beds for years before getting too big

- Ornamental grass

- Knockout roses

- Holly bushes grow too fast!

John,

My wife and I were in Ireland last month and I couldn't help to notice that most homes there had blacktop up next to the house and the shrubbery out along the fence, wall or lawn. Here is a picture of a typical Irish home and we both thought it looked very neat and clean. Just something to think about. It can be so beautiful but you can make yourself a lot of work with too much landscaping. I have seen many that I thought it would take about three full time gardeners to keep them trimmed.

Yes it looks nice. Wouldn't it make the house hotter with the blacktop right up to the house?

The eazy way, plant grass up to the foundation. all you have to do then is trim. No shrubs to trim no flowers to cut back , no mulch to replace ,no nothing!
joe, old and tired

Smart idea and I bet they rarely have termite problems.