We are staying close to home again this vacation season, so that means we will again invest in home improvements instead of memories. The driveway absolutely needs to be resurfaced or replaced, and if I put in a large, slow-growing evergreen, a mugo pine perhaps, the front bed will be done.
The side yard and back yard also need to be attended to. I am at a loss on the side yard. We've had a side yard like our neighbors: a bed extending a few feet from the side of our house, only ours had the added attraction of a rotting wood border.
I have been looking at a lot of Pinterest images of side yards. I do not need a spectacular side yard: just a place to keep peonies and flowering plants and one evergreen to cover up the spot where the hail dinged the siding.
I want something between this, which everyone has:
and this Pinterest extravaganza:
I, personally, am a big fan of trellises, so I would endorse chucking a rosebush on a flat trellis in front of where the hail dinged the siding. (such as https://www.lowes.com/pd/Garden-Treasures-21-9-in-W-x-80-9-in-H-Black-Garden-Trellis/50329093) I also like evergreens a lot, though.
Personally, I tend to go for the "joyful but slightly disreputable chaotic explosion of plants" look, over the topiary look or the naked-beauty-bark look; but I really like green things and I don't care beans about symmetry and the garden mostly has to run itself, so: plants to outcompete most of the weeds (dianthus is magic), different blooming schedules, call it a day.
But anyway, yes. There is a long distance, visually, between What Everyone Has and Pinterest... the key is to find something that you like and find interesting enough *but* that doesn't cost buckets of time and energy and money. Hmph.
Posted by: KC | April 09, 2019 at 12:21 PM
KC - You know what? You reminded me that the dianthus I have is reliable and comes back every year and, as you say, holds up against weeds. Now I’m thinking of a bed of dianthus and peonies. I’ll have to bury a root shield to protect the peonies from the dianthus. And some curved root barriers so I don’t just end up with a rectangle of dianthus. Hmm.
Still the evergreen needs to be there for winter color.
Posted by: TheQueen | April 09, 2019 at 05:42 PM
Yes on the root barriers. It's far less invasive than mint, but... yes on the root barriers. And curved would be nice for visual interest (really, to finish off defeating the Suburban Carbon Copy Here Is A Token "Garden" Installed By The Developers look).
Over here, we lose a dianthus plant occasionally, but only occasionally (and we give them literally zero water or maintenance of any kind), and they flower a ridiculous percentage of the year here, and are cheerful and green almost all the rest of the time, and they're as cheap as annuals, and they're glorious weed-blockers. So. Dianthus. (although there are a lot of different sub-types and different ones have different colored and sized leaves, so if you're going for matching, then watch out for that) The other thing that Can't Die in our garden is iris, which is a nice "background" for things most of the year and then flowers gloriously for a while - I like having things at multiple heights and I like green. But I don't know how iris does in St. Louis (and those do require an every-few-years break-up-the-party intervention to look their best).
Ah, the evergreen for winter color makes sense! I was imagining the difficulty of finding an evergreen that is large enough to hide hail damage but small enough that it won't grow too large/too close to the house. But there are evergreens that are slow-growers, right?
Posted by: KC | April 10, 2019 at 10:55 AM
KC - iris grows tremendously well in St. Louis, except for my yard. Dies in my yard.
Posted by: TheQueen | April 10, 2019 at 10:48 PM
When I started gardening, I thought that there were just Easy Plants and Hard Plants. (okay, technically, when I started gardening I was very small and I dug a pit to put water in next to my carrots' roots so that I theoretically wouldn't have to water them every day. But later!)
And then I learned about light levels.
And then I learned about soil acidity/alkalinity (hydrangeas!).
And then I learned about climate and that what grows well where I grew up might not grow well elsewhere, and things that grew poorly where I grew up might grow like mad elsewhere.
And then I learned that fertilizer is not just a plants-will-always-grow-better-if-you-add-more thing.
And then I learned about heat and water and how different areas of the space around a house get different heat and water from runoff and stuff.
And then I learned about sandy, loamy, and clayey soils and auuugh.
So: I am sorry that irises hate your yard, but I have absolutely no idea why... (not that you asked me. But I wish I could diagnose it so you could have irises because easy-care plants are so very nice to have.)
Posted by: KC | April 10, 2019 at 11:09 PM
KC - I think it’s because I plant them right next to the house, and there is a massive rabbit/opposing/fox warren right under our house. Why go afield for food when you can smell it in the other side of your wall?
Posted by: TheQueen | April 11, 2019 at 01:33 PM