landscape consultation

[rainbowgardener]

So we bought our house two years ago. When we bought it, the front looked like this:

house front.jpg (28.27 KiB) Viewed 16808 times

When we bought it, I was saying "the first thing I'm going to do is rip out all those green balls across the front." But then we had to restore the (huge) deck and then I was building all kinds of raised beds for vegetables (8 so far) in the back yard and ... the green balls are still there. Two years later they are almost all grown together and half again as tall, blocking off a lot more of the house. The only entrance to the front door is from the driveway right by the garage door and walk across the whole length of the porch, because the door is right in the corner where the gable sticks out. It's hard to even see how you are supposed to get to the door.

So I am finally taking down the green balls (two down and four to go! ) with my little chain saw. Once they are gone we will have stairs built straight down from the front door, with a paver path curving around to the driveway and then design a nice foundation planting.

So all that brings me to my question. I always tell people "go big" when designing foundation planting. You do not want a narrow strip/ straight row of plants--very boring and unflattering. Given that the house is about 55' across from the driveway edge to the other side, about how deep do people thing would be good? It will be curving front, but just to get a general sense of what I am looking at. The green balls stick out about seven feet from the house. I'm thinking that is about enough but it might curve out a bit more in front of the windows. What do people think? Should I go bigger?

[ID jit]

Have fun with the regrowth form the shrub roots.

18" to 2' of stone over fabric up against the house.

Trace out a half kidney shape with the lawn mower so it is easy to mow around.

Edge the garden with the same pavers, or even build a slightly raised bed maybe 2 or 3 pavers high.

Plant several small pockets of tiger lillies, put a half circle of siberian iris in front of them, randomly scatter small pocket of crocus, early and late tulips, early, mid and late daffodils and some flocks or similar on some of the 'corners' so it can fall out of the garden / edging stones.

Later, build an eliptical, easy to get around with the mower, sightly raised bed farther out into the big green square so that it looks like it dripped out of the half kidney shape. Plant it the same way.

Watch the bloom times so you always have some low maintenance plants blooming somewhere in the garden with a scattered effect.

[rainbowgardener]

I was specifically hoping for some thoughts about dimensions.

I will do mainly all native plants.

[imafan26]

I don't know about how deep, your front yard is so expansive. Frankly, I can't find the front door from that view. There is a dark expanse under the gable end and I see columns on the other side.The gable end is massive and like my garage is what you end up looking at. The other end recedes and that is where the entrance is.

I would try to minimize the massiveness of the gable. Are there windows there? Could you put and arbor there that would effectively cut the height down but frame rather than block the view. on the other end near the front door. I would go a bit wider and build the arbor roof to mimic a mini version of the gable end. You might even be able to use the arch to create another outdoor seating area. A destination for an expanded walkway and a step or two up to the covered porch.
If the upper part of the gable has access you could put planter boxes there.
I wish the front door could be brought out more, but I got no ideas on that.

[applestar]

Do you park your own cars in the garage or on the driveway? Where do you go in.out of the house yourselves?

Are you doing this mainly for aesthetics/curve appeal -- and logic -- or for convenience of visitors who would... park on the driveway or walk up the driveway from the street?

Where along the driveway do you envision the walk from the driveway to the front door starting?

I think these would have some bearing on the depth/width of the foundation bed.

The walk to the front door that came with my house is not ideal -- it starts very close to the garage with fairly narrow foundation bed, which means you have to walk along the driveway past the car to get on it. Many people who have re-landscaped have build walking path along the driveway from about mid-point on or all the way from the sidewalk along the street.

I think the walk from the driveway to the door shouldn't meander too much as in turn away from the destination, but I like designs in which the walkway is flared to ALSO loop around a little accent tree -- something that is big enough and pruned to walk under but not dominate -- usually with pretty spring blossoms. If you don't want that kind of height, this could also be a small round (maybe bordered with blocks) bed with a fountain or birdbath, butterfly garden kind of showpiece. ...kind of like the shape of the stomach, if you know what I mean, so the walkway follows a curvy straight path, but forks and loops around to hug the circular bed.


Fwiw -- I'm in the process of-almost finished-converting the grass lawn in the sunny/dry angle from about midway along the driveway to the existing walk into a mother-of-thyme lawn. It stays short and is fragrant when you walk on it, and is covered with lavender blossoms when in bloom. And on the other side of the thyme lawn, we have a triptych island bed of green and red laceleaf Japanese maples and a patio nectarine dominating the front lawn in front of the house to one side. It used to be in good proportion to the house.front lawn, but now the "little" trees have grown a bit bigger than what would be best balance, but they are impressive looking Japanese maples compared to tiny newly planted ones and the nectarine is beautiful in bloom. Too bad the fruit is disease susceptible and I have yet to bring them to full ripe harvest -- they get gooey.gummy and drop while green or just starting to fill out.

[thanrose]

If I were doing this, I'd be thinking about it from the content perspective first. Natives could include stuff like holly, persimmon, sassafras and other smallish trees, but they all have a mature spread that is potentially much wider than the seven foot bed you have. If you plan for small trees, you might want 15 feet for them. But if you are doing mountain laurel, hawthorn, and similar shorter but stout shrubs then getting by with less is fine.

Wildlife will be more likely to use the space if it's deeper, too.

If you would like to do minimal maintenance on the foundation garden, you can allow things to progress as they will. Keep in mind that with cultivation, feeding, watering, and other nurturing, even the small trees can get pretty big. I've seen both hollies and sassafras grow up past the second story in my brother's house in Zone 6.

With a planned path dividing the foundation bed into two chunks, you can keep all the bigger stuff on one side, or maybe plan some hardscape like a bench or a birdbath near your water tap.

Consider also maintenance. Shrubbery that doesn't allow space between it and the structure is potentially a problem. OTOH, prowlers can use shrubbery to cover them if you give them enough room.

[ID jit]

I was specifically hoping for some thoughts about dimensions.

I will do mainly all native plants.

In that case Go BIG or Go Home!.... wait your are home, so go BIG!

2' of the house for access and to minimize ant and termite migration, then an organic shape at 6' to 8' minimum.

[imafan26]

I have a covered entry and it apparently is hard to find. I often find people leaving things only my garage door. To be honest though, I did use the same door for the garage as the main door.
What I did find out was that I did not Feng Shui it right. By the garage door, which you also have to walk along the side of the garage to find I have a red pruned shrub ( e. cotonifolia) and dwarf acalypha ground cover. (red attracts and the ground cover and shrub are "soft" looking because of the leaves and red flowers. On the other hand there is a gate to the entry to the front door. The door can be seen behind the gate. However, I do have a hibiscus and a large gardenia in front of the gate. On that side of the driveway, I have my rose bed. So, I have thorny, uninviting plants and large shrubs blocking my entrance gate which actually looks like the fence. I don't have a lot of people come over so it really does not matter, but those who do still think I am going to let them in from the garage.

[told2b]

A view without the balls.

House no shrubs.jpg (208.31 KiB) Viewed 16782 times

[rainbowgardener]

very clever! I like it.

[rainbowgardener]

Before picture is at the top. That was from two years ago. The shrubs had gotten bigger and shaggier since then, but I didn't manage to take a picture just before starting this project. Here's the during and after:

No more green balls!! Even though it is bare, I like it better already.

[rainbowgardener]

So here's a very rough sketch of what I'm planning

What's in red doesn't exist yet.

We will have curved path from the driveway to the new steps which will be built soon. I want to split the path so that there's an entrance to it from closer to the house where we park and from farther back where a guest would park.

[rainbowgardener]

I'm considering the possibility of building some kind of little seating area like this into the plantings:



but haven't quite figured out where it would go.

For curb appeal, I want to paint that dark wood a lighter color and then add shutters on those windows. The lower level windows I would give window box planters.

[applestar]

Looking good -- I think your design is great. Windowboxes on the lower windows would be fabulous. Is your house considered a Dutch Colonial or some derivative thereof?

...I could picture a wooden bench swing as an alternative... but then I suddenly had an image of a scene from the movie Tootsie heh.

[rainbowgardener]

Yes, some kind of imitation Dutch colonial.....

I think it was supposed to look sort of rustic. I basically think it is ugly, but hoping we can improve its looks somewhat. We bought the house in spite of the lack of curb appeal. It had a lot of other good features -- big fenced in backyard, wood burning fireplace, lots of built in book cases, plenty of space (2000 sq ft + the two car garage) and mainly a good location and a very low price. We looked at prettier houses with more of what I wanted re entertaining space, but this was like $30,000 less than most of them.

[rainbowgardener]

That $30,000 difference is what is going to allow us to put solar panels on. We just sold our Cincinnati house (which has been on a two year lease to own). This house is enough cheaper than the Cincinnati house (which was almost paid off) that the sale price allows us to pay off the mortgage on this house completely, pay off the loan on our truck, AND have enough left over to do solar panels.

We just signed a contract for the solar panels which will be operational before the end of the year!!

It is an all electric house, so the solar panels will wipe out most of our utility bills as well as giving us a very low carbon footprint.

This is the way to be retired: no mortgage, no debts, minimal utility bills, grow a lot of our own food. We retired with not very much cash and fixed income, but we have made it so we need very little money.

Just a note on how we did this, never having made a ton of money by middle America standards. When we bought the Cincinnati house, we bought a house that cost half of how much the bank said they would loan us. It also wasn't everything we wanted - prettier than this one and with a nice big separate dining room, but very little gardening space and right on a big busy street. We bought it on a 30 year mortgage, but after two years, we refinanced to 15 year mortgage. And then we paid an extra thousand directly on the principal once a year. That is why that mortgage had only $2000 left on it when it was sold and why we came out with enough cash left over to do all those things above. The 15 year mortgage payments weren't that much higher than the 30 year ones had been and saved us thousands in interest. I really recommend it, if there is any way you can do it.

[rainbowgardener]

So I ordered myself a hundred dollars worth of shrubs for the front yard:

If you click to enlarge, you can read the labels. Since the frontage I am planting is 55' across there's a lot more room than this looks like. I still want a couple of leucothoe/fetterbush and one or two purple nine bark.

Yes I know Japanese maple isn't native, but I just love them had a beautiful one in Cincinnati. It will be a dwarf.

You can see there's lots of berries for the birds, and four seasons of interest -- spring flowers, summer flowers, purple/ red foliage plants, broad leaf evergreens, fall colors, berries that last most of the winter....

Next year I will probably add a few more shrubs, an ornamental grass or two, maybe a small conifer type evergreen, and some perennials in front of them, with low annuals in front of them...

To get that many plants for that price (actually the Jap. maple isn't included in that price, haven't ordered it yet), they are in one gallon containers and are small. It will take it a couple years to look like much at all, but eventually it will be nice.

The berm will be a next year project...

Here's a couple of my inspiration pictures, the kind of thing I am eventually aiming for:

[applestar]

Oooh maybe you could get what I have been wanting for a while -- Italian pine that produces pine nuts. That would take a while I suppose.

Here it's too cold, I would have to go with dwarf Korean or Siberian... (native pines are too big), and I haven't gone ahead with getting any because my subsoil clay plus low soggy area being only available space left is likely not the right kind of soil for them. But especially with your planned berm, you would have the drainage you would need to grow pine.

[pinksand]

Yayyyyy It's looking great and I love your plan! I think painting the house a lighter, color will definitely add curb appeal, along with adding shutters.

I think what you have sketched out seems like sufficient space to be in scale with the house... obviously not if you planted a million little begonias in there, but I know you better than that.

I know you didn't necessarily want plant suggestions, but if you have the space for it on the far right of the house, a 'Little Gem' Magnolia would be beautiful there to soften the edge of the house. The aroma from the blooms could fill the rooms in the front if you open the windows. I have a great view of mine from our kitchen, but it's too far away to be able to appreciate the smell as much as I'd like. Just a thought!

[rainbowgardener]

Well, I was thinking some kind of taller tree at the corner to soften it. But we were out figuring out where the shrubs will go. Turns out I didn't entirely account for roof overhangs AND electric wires coming into the house. You can't see it in the picture, but all the main electrical wires come from the street to the corner of the house just in front of the chimney. The partner is very concerned about having anything near there that might possibly grow up into those wires (more concerned than I would be, my feeling is you just prune it away, but I have to listen to her). So we are going to have a small shrub on that corner instead.

And the barn shaped part of the roof has a wide overhang, so nothing can be planted very close or it will be in the rain shadow. So the bed will be a bit wider than I originally thought with at least two feet of gravel at the back.

Pictures to follow when I get planting done!

[pinksand]

Love it! Somehow I missed the second page of your thread when I posted... oops!

Your plant selections look great! The only thing that may be missing is greenery in the winter besides the Florida Anise. I know beautyberry is always advertised as having berries for winter interest, but mine is usually bare by December, leaving nothing but sticks Jan - April. The right side of the house will be stunning in the fall between the purple berries, blueberry leaves, and sweetspire, but I worry it might look a bit bare in winter. The leucothoe you mentioned might help a bit, being evergreen but is a pretty low grower, so not adding much structure.

Just wanted to point it out since that's one of the differences I noticed between what you've mentioned already purchasing and what I see in your inspiration photos. I know it's not native, but what about a camellia in between the windows? It looks like they have one in your first inspiration photo and it can offer either early winter or early spring blooms when nothing else is really blooming in your garden. If you want to stick native, maybe some kind of mountain laurel (not sure if they do well where you are) or holly like inkberry holly that could be a green backdrop for everything else?

[rainbowgardener]

I do want more evergreens. The leucothoes will help, but as you say not very big. In the meantime, I just bought a prostrate juniper and an evergreen re-blooming azalea, neither of which is native, but oh well. I want mostly native plantings and things with habitat value, but I'm not being 100% purist. There are native azaleas here, but they are all deciduous. I wanted the evergreen one.

I definitely want a camellia, just not sure where yet.... That spot between the windows is where I was going to put the beautyberry. They say 3-5', but the one I had in Cincinnati got gigantic and incredibly fast growing. I ended up cutting it back to just about two feet tall at the end of the season and I would still have to cut it back again mid-season to keep it in bounds. When I didn't do that, it would get to 10' tall in no time. So I thought I would give it a little more room this time.... But I could re-think that. They have camellias in the stores right now; I was looking at them longingly....

[pinksand]

Yeah, it's so hard to stick to only native, especially when looking for something evergreen. My motto is if I can find something native that fits what I'm looking for I'll definitely go with it, otherwise if it has any environmental value it gets points, and if it has negative environmental impact then it's out. The re-blooming azaleas are gorgeous, and the bees will enjoy their blooms

10' tall is a huge beauty berry! That sounds stunning!!!

You'll have more camellia options where you are than I have here! I have Winter's Snowman which is supposed to bloom in late fall and consistently buds and then gets zapped by frost. It's only been in the ground for 2 years so it's more established this year and looking really good with lots of fat healthy buds so I'm hoping I'll get to finally enjoy it! My 'April Rose' camellia has only been in the ground for a year and was absolutely stunning last March, blooming for a solid month. If you have the chance to get one, I say go for it! They're great for a space where you want height but don't have the width for something huge.

[rainbowgardener]

So, pinksand, I took your suggestion! Ran right out and bought myself a camellia!! Thanks for the idea.

Still working on getting all this planting done. Bought some bags of organic enriched topsoil and some peat moss and dug out some buckets of compost. Spreading all that around and turning it in and planting.

In the meantime, the crew is here installing our solar panels, so lot is happening!

[applestar]

Don’t forget tea is camellia, too. Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

[pinksand]

You have a LOT going on at once! How exciting! I'll look forward to hearing how you like your solar panels. It's something I've considered, but also really want the Tesla shingles since our roof needs replacing soon... just nervous about something so new and expensive!

What variety of camellia did you end up with? I don't think you'll be disappointed!

Yayyyy, it's all coming together!

[rainbowgardener]

Yes the Tesla shingles and the Tesla power wall are very new and expensive technologies yet. Our system can be retrofitted to a power wall later. In a few years, I expect that the price on them will have come down a whole lot. In the meantime, we've spent all the thousands of dollars we can for right now. (Incidentally, come tax time we will get a 30% rebate on our system; that is substantial.)

The camellia is variety Yuletide. And yes, the fact that it is tea leaves was another thing making me want it.

[rainbowgardener]

The panels are all on! From most angles from the ground, you can't even see them:

Both directions of roof there have panels. You can just see the edge of the ones on the section of roof to the right of the door.

[rainbowgardener]

So here's the first pictures of the plantings. The pictures aren't very good -- I need to take some earlier in the day, when the shadows aren't on them. The house faces (mostly) east, so it is a morning sun location.

Looking from the driveway, the first ones are florida anise, prostrate juniper, summer sweet. (It's just a flat of pansies that I am planning to pop in various places. ) I have a battery operated, self winding hose caddy ordered, to keep the hose neat and hidden.

Looking from the other direction, in the foreground is the re-blooming azalea, farther back is the camellia and blueberries. Not visible in front of this picture, off the corner of the house is a sweetspire, which is sort of visible at the very end of the first picture, near the neighbor's driveway.

This is another view of camellia and blueberries. Not visible off the left edge of this photo, near the end of the porch is a beautyberry. The beautyberry is barely visible in the first picture, near the big white bag of peat moss.

In the front corner of the lawn, in front of the utility box, etc is a serviceberry tree and a dogwood tree. This is where I had thought about putting a raised berm. Maybe in the spring I will lift the trees and do that. Or maybe it will just become an island bed instead.

Next step is to put down a bunch of mulch, with gravel next to the house. And the stairs from the front door still need to be built, then paths added. In the spring I will add the leucothoes and probably a purple nine bark and then a bunch of perennial and annual flowers. Everything is tiny so far. In a couple seasons, it will have grown and filled in a lot. These pictures seem to condense the distances; there's a lot more room and things are farther away from the house than it looks like.

After everything is settled in a bit, I will check the soil pH. Most of these are acid lovers. My soil is slightly acid to start with. I planted them with some peat moss and a little bit of Dr. Earth organic fertilizer for acidity. So I will need to check where it ended up at, to see what else I need to do.

[pinksand]

RBG it's looking beautiful!!!! It's hard when everything is so tiny at first, but I can envision what all those plants will look like in a few years as they start to really take off. It's going to be such an improvement! I love the variety you have going on in there.

Off topic, but my Winter's Snowman is officially blooming for the first time!!! I think our conversation about them brought me good luck.

[Animal_lover]

@Rainbowgardener: Just by reading through this thread I got a lot of useful information. Thank you for sharing details about your affording a house, going low cost with utilities and new plans . You went 100% solar or you are still connected to the grid? The installation looks very clean and neat.

[rainbowgardener]

It is connected to the grid. In fact we are not powering our own house, we are just contributing power to the grid. (Officially we are now a green power provider.) I was a little disappointed when I realized this. Eventually we may change it. Our system can be retrofitted to something like a Tesla power wall (lithium battery power storage). In a few years, I expect that the price on them will have come down a whole lot. In the meantime, we've spent all the thousands of dollars we can for right now.

But we actually make more money from them this way. Connected to the grid, the utility company pays us for all the power we generate, even that which is in excess of what we use. With battery storage, we are essentially only benefiting from what we use.

It is very clean and neat and only visible from certain angles.

Again it depends on our usage and what happens to energy prices, but the guy from the utility company gave us an estimate of 7 year payback time, for when we will have made our money back from them. That is even less than we were expecting and the utility company is completely separate from the solar company, so he wasn't hyping a product.

[Animal_lover]

Oh, 7 years payback time is wonderful! Lately, I read a lot about solar power and different schemes and options available. That's why I asked you about being connected to the grid.

So, you go with "Solar Renewable Energy Credits?" I liked how they are explained in the article from Greentumble on advantages of solar power (https://greentumble.com/solar-energy-pros-and-cons/). That is where I started to do my reading and then got more in depth.

But overall, I am very much convinced that modern solar panels are definitely worth it. And I am sure that efficient (and affordable) energy storage systems will be developed in the next decade, as more and more scientists and engineers set their focus on this task.

[rainbowgardener]

So here's the next step in our home improvement projects:

(literally the next steps! )

remember, this is what it looked like when we started:

chattanooga house.jpg (28.27 KiB) Viewed 16707 times

for some reason, of all the pictures I have of my house and yard, I never took one straight on of the house front, before we started making all the changes.

So now we will make the paver paths to the driveway and then do some re-painting.

Yes, I know, I always tell people go big with foundation plantings, has to be in scale with the house. Now I have teeny-tiny little shrubs, all out of scale. But give them a couple years! With everything else we are doing, just didn't have the pocket book to buy mature shrubs.

[applestar]

The changes you made are really making a difference. I was going to say you could compensate with annuals to fill in while you wait for the shrubs to grow, but then thought maybe with the mild winters and longer growing season, they might grow faster than I (and maybe you, too) would expect.

[rainbowgardener]

In the spring I will plant flowers, perennials and annuals.

Here's one attempt at thinking about paint colors. I couldn't get a good paver color. The pavers will definitely not stand out in the landscape like that, basically some kind of brick/ terra cotta color:

(I'm just learning to use the paint tools and I was going fast....

[rainbowgardener]

OR:

[told2b]

.....

[rainbowgardener]

Wow, you are way better at the photo stuff than I am! I would have no idea how to put the bricks and flowers and everything in. I like the two tone door.

The one I did with the two extremely crudely indicated paver paths, the idea is the one closer to the house is where we park and the one farther back would be where guests park. The triangle in between would have a fountain or bird bath or something and a small shrub.

As I look at it in the picture and IRL, I think the yard is going to be a bit unbalanced with two paths going to the driveway and nothing the other way. There is no symmetry to the house anyway, but still... I'm thinking eventually we might need to add a path curving away from the driveway out to the street. It would be purely for cosmetics to balance the look better. There is no sidewalk and no one much walks on our little dead end street, except our neighbors walking dogs. Even the mail carrier drives up. Our guests would always be coming from the driveway.

I came here to post my latest attempt:

This has the garage doors painted the same color as the wood on the other side (below the barn roof) to blend them in better, so garage doors don't jump out at you so much

[rainbowgardener]

So I posted to my Facebook friends a poll, vote for the one that is my first Dec 1 post here with the blue shutters or the second Dec 1 post with the red shutters. I personally actually favor the blue (but with the darker garage doors as in the red-shutter picture), but every vote so far (five of them) has been for the red shutter version.

Anyone here want to register a vote?