Beginner in need of advice for front yard.

[MoosMommy]

Hello,
we recently had 2 big palm trees cut down in front of our house. Now we are left with some ugly stumps. While they are ugly, I would rather have the stumps than the big trees, anyway, this is what we are left with. I'm in need of advice of something I can plant there that would somewhat conceal the stumps. Maybe a kind of plant that grows up onto it and can cover it? Maybe some kind of bush? I also want to eventually plant a tree in the yard to help shade the house. A medium size tree with minimal upkeep would be nice. Any suggestions on that would be appreciated as well. Thank you!

[imafan26]

A few questions first please
1. Where do you live. if you add your location and zone to your profile it would help
2. What is the style of your house and garden. Formal, contemporary, etc.. What you choose for the site should fit in with the style of the house and garden and how you want to view and use the space.
3. Instead of hiding the stumps, you can use them as an integral part of the project.
4. Consider creating an island bed instead of the rectangle. The rectangles makes the yard look smaller and broken up. The yard would flow better and look more unified without the straight lines. Even the beds at the house would look less harsh with curved lines and differences in texture, height and color to soften the straight lines and boxiness of the house, the lawn and the path.

https://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/gardennotes/413.html

[rainbowgardener]

All good suggestions, especially getting rid of all the straight lines.

If you want to get rid of them, what worked for me was to cover the whole stump, top and area around the base and sides, with a big pile of charcoal briquettes. Light the charcoal and let it burn. When I burned a stump out of my front lawn that way, the stump eventually caught fire and smouldered for a couple days, and eventually burned out even the roots.

If you really want something that will cover them, best would be vines. I assume since they are palm trees, you are somewhere warm, maybe Florida? So you would have choice of lots of beautiful flowering vines. But if you do that, it will still look like vine covered lumps. So you would need to balance that with something taller like a big boulder


https://extremehowto.com/wp-content/uplo ... r-lead.jpg

I couldn't find a great picture of what I had in mind, but the idea is the large stone "lump" makes the smaller vine-stump lumps look like they belong there. Leave the small stones that are there also and make a rock garden effect.

But even a fountain or something tall would help.

To use imafan's idea of integrating them, I would level them off flat and then use them as bases for large containers of plants.


Tree suggestions depend on knowing where you are and what direction the house faces.

[applestar]

They look like they would help to improve the soil if ground down and worked in.

[imafan26]

Palm trees are not like other trees the roots are a ball of knotted strings and very hard to break through and the stumps are fibrous. They don't rot down quickly. Burning them might be an option if it is allowed. It isn't allowed in my neighborhood.

Vines can work or a berm, burying them and plant on top of it. Wild flowers or ornamental grasses could just be planted around them and they would blend in eventually. Coir accepts epiphytes so ground orchids if the temps stay above 40 degrees. Succulents would also work and attach.

If the top of the stump is relatively flat, you can use it as a pedestal to highlight a color bowl , sundial, or bird feeder. Add some soil around the base of the stumps and plant shallow evergreens like creeping juniper it would be relatively low maintenance if you put a weedblock liner under it and use some decorative bark or cinder around the juniper.

Another idea would be to plant some short flowers like alyssum, nasturtiums, or petunias that will surround and actually grow over the stumps and give you some color. Something tall and structural can be added like clumps of iris (groups of three work well) or ornamental grass at the center of the bed. Put the stumps on the side of the bed not the center, it draws less attention to the stumps that way unless you want them to be a focal point. To make it appear more natural, try not to plant anything equidistantly or in straight lines but it is ok to plant in drifts. It is better to choose fewer elements than too many.

[MoosMommy]

Everybody has been so helpful! Oh and I live in Northern California. About an hour from the bay area. It does get pretty warm in summer, but it can also get pretty cold in the winter. I like the birdfeeder and fountain idea too. Thanks!

[rainbowgardener]

Hmmm.... an hour north of SF looks like it would probably be zone 10, possibly zone 9

https://www.plantmaps.com/interactive-ca ... ss-map.php

Tree suggestions

In California, you have the Pacific dogwood, which is even showier than our east coast variety.
Very pretty medium sized tree with berries that birds like https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result ... lant=CONU4

Then there are various varieties of prunus, which are fruit bearing small trees, attractive to birds and butterflies and other wildlife. Sandhill plum is evergreen for you https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result ... lant=PRAN3
Chokecherry is deciduous and the fruit is less edible for humans https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result ... plant=PRVI

Pacific yew is a smallish coniferous evergreen https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result ... lant=TABR2 that forms itself in to interesting shapes

[rainbowgardener]

Pacific dogwood:




https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... llii_4.jpg

[gillespieza]

Could you turn the stumps into stools? Sand the tops smooth, use them as part of an outdoor dining area?

Alternatively, I like the previous suggestion of using them as pedestals for containers - the varied height would add visual interest.