Forth Garden
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This is a backyard. This is an area where they don't spend a lot of time, which is great information. So what does that tell you? Okay. It is really low maintenance and use. We need to fill that with plants because weeds are opportunists.. If the ground is covered with plants then there is no place for them to grow. I look at that and I get a little vertigo even like I'm going to fall. I need something to try to anchor that space and define that space.
This is the front view. The other challenge is the slope. Who wants to be riding the lawn mower or worse pushing a lawn mower up that hill.
Then the other request was ideas for something spilling over that rock wall. This is a little bit sunnier location and south facing so it gets sun until 2:00 or 3:00 depending on the time of year.
Here is what I would do. Does anyone know Ayesha Hydrangea? So beautiful. They have these really delicate little florets and kind of variegated white and black and blue and big foliage. We've got our handy dandy little variegated boxwood because we have a yellow house, so let's work with that yellow house. What colors can we put in front of that yellow house to make it fabulous?
Let's just talk about the steps for now. So I would recommend an evergreen, rounded plant, maybe placed every other step to really define that space. It's a very wide path, but the actual fence is pretty narrow. So when you're creating a path, typically you want it wide enough for two people to walk side by side down the steps or through the woods or whatever. I mean, it doesn't always work, but just generally. So we're going to put in little round Evergreen shrubs here. It's like a 50% improvement right there. And then I would just go maybe every other set of steps.
This is an Ilex Soft Touch Japanese Holly. If you never touch it in ten or 50 years, it'll still be three feet. I can send you the plant names if you're.
This Ayesha Hydrangea, I will put at the top of the hill. Just let it get too big and fabulous because when you are in this area, it's probably in the summertime. That's when you spend time down there. So who cares if it's evergreen or not. And variegated boxwood may be one here and one over here.
I've got this Abelia Kaleidoscope shrub. This has got a beautiful color and next to your yellow house is really pretty.You want to camouflage that air conditioning. So camouflage that with some shrubs.
Then introduce some different types of textures. Maybe Hosta Elegans or some Bergenia Winter Glow. Everyone know the Great Plant Picks website? Bergenia is evergreen, fall color blooms, and has some drought tolerance. So you put that in the garden bed to the left of the door and that could be more in the front you could add some of these grasses for some movement.
You can also do some of these grasses over the rock wall. This is the Hakonechloa Beni Kaze. Everyone knows the yellow one, but this one is green and its red variation in the fall is fabulous.
And these are just recommendations and lots of choices. These are the ones that I came up with. You have all kinds of different textures. The textures work together with color variation.
Then for something more colorful and flowering along the rock wall, you could do something like Blue Wave Campanula. This is a pretty long section. And then Iberis Snowsation, the candytuft. That is an easy plant if you like white. It's a good plant and blooms for so long, like one, four, four, five, six weeks maybe. But this one blooms for a really long time.
Then for your slope. I would recommend removing all of the side and then planting it with a ground cover like a cotoneaster. This is Cotoneaster Dammeri. It's semi evergreen and it'll grow about eight feet wide but only about a foot tall. It blooms and it has these beautiful red berries. That's going to spread and cover that hillside so you never have to never have to weed it once it has covered. If you don't like to wait. I would probably plant every 2 to 3 feet. They are usually in a one gallon container. Sometimes you can grow them very significantly into a bonsai style.
Suggested Plants:
This is an Ilex Soft Touch Japanese Holly. If you never touch it in ten or 50 years, it'll still be three feet. I can send you the plant names if you're.
This Ayesha Hydrangea, I will put at the top of the hill. Just let it get too big and fabulous because when you are in this area, it's probably in the summertime. That's when you spend time down there. So who cares if it's evergreen or not. And variegated boxwood may be one here and one over here.
I've got this Abelia Kaleidoscope shrub. This has got a beautiful color and next to your yellow house is really pretty.You want to camouflage that air conditioning. So camouflage that with some shrubs.
Then introduce some different types of textures. Maybe Hosta Elegans or some Bergenia Winter Glow. Everyone know the Great Plant Picks website? Bergenia is evergreen, fall color blooms, and has some drought tolerance. So you put that in the garden bed to the left of the door and that could be more in the front you could add some of these grasses for some movement.
You can also do some of these grasses over the rock wall. This is the Hakonechloa Beni Kaze. Everyone knows the yellow one, but this one is green and its red variation in the fall is fabulous.
And these are just recommendations and lots of choices. These are the ones that I came up with. You have all kinds of different textures. The textures work together with color variation.
Then for something more colorful and flowering along the rock wall, you could do something like Blue Wave Campanula. This is a pretty long section. And then Iberis Snowsation, the candytuft. That is an easy plant if you like white. It's a good plant and blooms for so long, like one, four, four, five, six weeks maybe. But this one blooms for a really long time.
Then for your slope. I would recommend removing all of the side and then planting it with a ground cover like a cotoneaster. This is Cotoneaster Dammeri. It's semi evergreen and it'll grow about eight feet wide but only about a foot tall. It blooms and it has these beautiful red berries. That's going to spread and cover that hillside so you never have to never have to weed it once it has covered. If you don't like to wait. I would probably plant every 2 to 3 feet. They are usually in a one gallon container. Sometimes you can grow them very significantly into a bonsai style.
Suggested Plants:
- Ayesha Hydrangea
- Variegated Boxwood
- Ilex Soft Touch
- Abelia Kaleidoscope
- Bergenia Winter Glow
- Blue Wave Campanula
- Iberis Snowsation or similar
- Hosta Elegans
- Hakonechloa Beni Kaze
- Cotoneaster Dammeri