Hello all..I've decided to start my own thread instead of continuing to hog Smoodgie's thread with my shrub questions.
OK..here they are:
1. I planted a Barberry 2 summers ago but it has hardly grown...the area is mostly shaded..should I move it to a sunnier part of the garden??
2. I planted a pair of Weigelia 3 summers ago..they have barely grown...I thought they were in a sunny location..but have just come to realize that they get only afternoon sun...should I relocate those as well??
:biglol: Are you sensing a pattern?? :biglol:
3. I have a well established Bridalwreath Spirea (2 outta 3 aint bad eh??) that is smack dab in the middle of my soon to be flowerbed next to our house..will the other shrubs I mentioned look ok with it?? Maybe I should just put those ones somewhere else..and buy new specimens for the flowerbed?? Any suggestions??
Thanks,
:) Mel
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Mel you havea beautiful lot around your home. I can see a Silver Lace vine growing over that gate/arbor. If you are up to " do it yourself " buy the molds for cement stepping stones. A friend did her whole patio using those forms and it is beautiful. They have a couple of designs you can choose from. The rounded stone mold would give a soft look to the edge of the walkway.
Thanks Luvto..we have a small problem tho..while I was at ballet last Saturday...DH decided to "surprise" me by digging out the walkway...and he made an almost perfectly straight line from the gate to the steps...and there was no way I was gonna tell him I didn't want a straight walkway..so..now we have to work with it.
Mel, I like that walkway, get something to match your house and make it windy, I know you like things to be "different", it will look really nice :)
Ok ladies..come on...is it in that big of a mess that noone wants to even take a stab at it???
Stepmom was here yesterday..suggested we go with a flagstone walkway...i still like the cobblestones in the pic below...what do you think...also...any thoughts on the dry riverbed??
Beautiful Coleus!!! I tried growing some a couple of years ago..but they DIED!!! :biglol: :biglol: Maybe I'll try again..and READ the directions this time!?!
Here's a couple of pics of the area where we are installing the new walkway..from the gate to the front steps as shown in my silly diagram from the earlier post. Please try to ignore the various toys, overgrown grass..and dandeliens...this was taken a couple of weeks ago before we got out and did some much needed work. :rolleyes:
Also, in the pic taken from the patio you can see a pipe going across the walkway..apparently the previous owners had some sort of a stream there at one point..all thats left now is the trench and the pipe...very very little water!! Because there is a small amount of natural runoff from the hill beside our house..we've decided to keep the trench tho..just in case. Who knows when we might get some crazy torrential rainfall??? :laugh: I was thinking about doing a dry riverbed type of look there...what do you guys/gals think??
And I know...the shutters need to be painted..and soooo many other things..but lets stick to the walkway and surrounding areas for right now.
Thanks,
:) Mel
Pearl_girl, that coleus is gigantic and so beautiful....my friend grows them from seed and they grow so nicely in her garden too.....it's an old plant and has come back for a couple of years now and you're seeing it more often in gardens. There is such a great variety in colours and shapes and sizes too. :)
[QUOTE=Pearl_girl]It is a beauty and fills up a large space,[/QUOTE
Those plants are beautiful!
It is a beauty and fills up a large space,
are good partners...the hostas take forever to get going and by the time they do, they can conceal the wreckage of the tulips...
There is a new kind of coleus out this year called Kong, and what a show-stopper -- HUGE HUGE leaves, absolutely gorgeous. If the monsoon passes over, I will take a pic...
Smoodgie, good tip about the tulips..I had no idea...that wouldn't be pretty to look at. Are you talking about Coleus?? I know that it comes in fantastic colours..chartreuse and burgandy being just a couple.
Yes, that's it!! Thanks for giving it a name :D
Don't let the tulip leaves stop you from growing tulips -- just try to plan things out so that the leaves are at least partially hidden. Or, plant annuals around them to help hide them.
I don't know how my Barberry has done so well if they like drought conditions as my DH will tell you they get plenty of rain here in the winter you could never call this area dry.
Here's the weird thing about the Barberry..the main bulk of the plant is still the same foot high shrub I planted 2 years ago...but then there are 6 shoots branching out from the middle that are like 4 feet long...what the heck???
Barberry's tend to thrive in drought conditions. Don't water too much and should ideally be in a sunny location. If too wet they will mold and die off.
Some barberry's are dwarf plants and others will bush out. If it has a tiny leaf too it it is probably a dwarf.
I have some beautiful hostas in my side garden...LOVE them!!! I also have periwinkle planted in my rock garden..I had no idea what a great ground cover it could be..I've had to move 3 other plants that were too close to it..cause it just took right over.
Jeep, thanks for the tip about the Barberry..I'll definitely have to dig that up and give it a new home.
Smoodgie, good tip about the tulips..I had no idea...that wouldn't be pretty to look at. Are you talking about Coleus?? I know that it comes in fantastic colours..chartreuse and burgandy being just a couple.
I'm attatching a rough (REALLY REALLY ROUGH) drawing I just did on paint to show you kind of how it'll look. There will be a small planting bed in front of the deck as well..but that won't be till next year. The small roundish thing you see to the left of the walkway is where my Bleeding Heart and Autumn Joy Sedums are right now..as well as a few other things I don't know the name of..hehehe. And the large roundish thing is where the new garden is going. Oh..I fogot to draw in where the Bridalwreath Spirea is...just to the left of the larger curve...I'm so not good at explaining these things..LOL.
Sure, may as well try giving your plants a new home -- maybe they'll do better in a different spot :)
I think it was homebody who said that if you prune the smoke bush way back to the ground, it won't grow so big and you'll have nicer foliage. I guess it all depends on how big the spot is and how much pruning you want to do :D
Being partial to purple, I think your purple & white colour theme sounds great!! There are lots of different shades of purple, from bluey to almost black. How about tossing in some pink too??
I'm sure there are lots of chartreuse plants out there -- as I mentioned before, some hostas are chartreuse. What about that low plant that's burgundy & chartreuse?? No idea what it's called, but you've probably seen it.... maybe somebody else knows the name and could post a pic??
For sure annuals planted along the walkway for colour would be great. I love impatiens, because they're zero-maintenance, bright and colourful, and get bigger and better over the course of the summer :) Tulips would be nice too -- the only problem with them is that once the blooms are done, you're supposed to leave the leaves alone till they die back before you cut them off. Which doesn't look great -- but if you plant the tulips mixed in with something that'll be about the height of the tulip leaves by the time the blooms are done, then those plants will hide the dying leaves.
Maybe irises along the walkay would work better -- at least their leaves stay green all summer, so they look prettier than the tulips leaves. Irises come in so many different shades of purple, you're sure to find ones for your purple & white theme :)
Periwinkle might make a nice ground cover -- the purple flowers don't last all season, but their leaves are nice and would fill in some gaps.
I have three of the Barberry in my front bed and I only planted them a year ago and they have nearly doubled in size. They get full sun all day so maybe that is your problem. Other than planting and watering I know nothing about gardening so it is just a guess on my part.
Thanks for the suggestions Smoodgie...I have 2 purple Weigelia (the ones that didn't grow..hehe) maybe I can dig them up and plop them down in the garden with the spirea?? I'm actually leaning back towards the idea of the purple smoke bush..simply because it grows sooo fast. That would at least give me a bit of a colour theme...white and purple..and I could underplant with something chartreuse...not sure what but the colour would work.
As for the walkway, i was thinking about just doing a small edging on either side with spring bulbs ( tulips, possibly blue muscari) and then planting annuals for some summer colour...what do you think about that??
No problem with hijacking the smoke bush thread -- the replies to your questions are helpful to me too!! :D
I'm really not that great of a gardener -- I see a plant I like, I plunk it into the ground, and then I end up with plants to close together with no common factor between them. Which is why when it came time to landscape our backyard, we got a plan drawn up by a landscaper. We wanted low-maintenance, dog-friendly plants. Off the top of my head, she recommended the following shrubs/plants:
Purple Weigelia (don't even know how to spell it!!)
Various junipers
Little spruce tree
Mock Orange
Silverleaf Dogwood
Purple Sandcherry
Burning Bush
Contoneaster (I thought it's pronounced cotton-easter -- but it's co-tone-ee-as-ter)
Peking Cotoneaster
Goldmound something-or-other
Spirea
Hostas
Yuccas
We kept the tags on the plants, in case any died and we had to get them replaced, so I can check them later and let you know what other plants we have. I can post a few pics too, if you'd like.
OK, so keeping in mind that I have no idea how to combine plants, here's a suggestion for the garden along your walkway..... how about some ornamental grasses (taller ones at the back, shorter ones near the front), hostas (lots of different colours and types available --blue, chartreuse, some have white edges....) closer to the front, some different shrubs (smoke bush, sandcherry, burning bushes) in the back and center, and then plant impatiens along the edge of the walkway to add colour all summer long.
Oh, another plant you might want to check out is a Devil's Stick. I have no idea what the Latin name is, but the people at the nursery who told us about the smoke bush mentioned that one as well. I'll see if I can find a picture of one to post for you. It's pretty funky looking -- but it's more of a tree than a shrub.
Bigmama...they sure as hell aint GREEN!!! :biglol: :biglol: :biglol:
Mel it sound like you have BLUE thumbs like me :biglol: :laugh: