Landscaping Suggestions Wanted

shadylanejewel · Post by **shadylanejewel** » Mar 02, 2005 12:54 pm

I'm going to tackle the driveway leading to the nursery and house this spring (so starting now

).

This first photo is the south side of our driveway heading west toward the house.

Second photo is a closeup of the same view.

There are parts of wagon wheels (Black rims) embeded in a concrete wall. The wall is covered in moss and is hiding under all of the ferns. There are daffodil bulbs which have never bloomed (too shady). A struggling forsythia and spirea. I'm fairly sure I've seen lilac foliage on one of the smaller trees.

I plan to remove a lot of the sword ferns and thin the stand of trees visible in the back of the photo. I'll add in some Rhodies and of course Hosta, epimediums and many more shade perennials. The daffodils, forsythia and spirea will be moved to a more sunny location.

We also plan to add a driveway gate where the wall begins.

Any suggestions would be more than welcome.

kHT · Post by **kHT** » Mar 02, 2005 11:40 pm

What fun, can't wait to see it all completed. Sounds like you have a good plan.

masja63 · Post by **masja63** » Mar 04, 2005 5:51 am

Don't pull out all the ferns, such wonderfull plants, and they give a good structure in a shady border.

But I admit that they can be a bit overpowering. But there are lots of smaller sized cultivars as well with all sorts of leaves.

Hosta's and Epimediums sound great to put there. There are such a lot of different sorts of Hosta, that you can combine endlessly. Plant at least 3 of the same sort together, to make impressive groups.

Cyclamen are lovely bulbs to plant in shady areas, and there are culitivars with beautiful silver foliage as well.

http://users.pandora.be/jan.mieke.bastiaens

Wanda · Post by **Wanda** » Mar 04, 2005 11:13 am

Looks like a great site to work with! Especially with the slope to the drive to showcase the plants. I built a new 91’x31’ garden along the east side of our driveway last year (while in an ankle brace). The 91’ only takes up about a third of the entire distance of the drive, so still a lot of work to do. It was a rush job, as had to move 197 hosta because the two huge old white pines they were under are dying and need to be removed. And with two trees with trunks over 8’ around, the hosta had to be moved so they didn’t get destroyed.

You can see pictures of my project at:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/druidwt/my_photos

Click on “04 New Garden”.

The pic go from the south end of the garden to north, and show unplanted then planted views. A lot of the trees visible will be removed - husband had shoulder surgery last spring and couldn’t use the chainsaw. Will be replacing some with flowering trees: dogwood, crabapple, redbud, Juneberry (amelanchier canadensis), etc. Luckily, have lots of Juneberry growing wild here I can just transplant.

Wish I had had enough room to put in more companions, but ran out of room with over 20 hosta left. Will add some as I expand the garden down the drive. Am sure Mother Nature will help, also...that area was full of wildflowers, wintergreen, red twig dogwood, viburnums, two colors of wild honeysuckle, wild clematis, bracken fern, wild strawberries, sweet woodruff and who knows what else. They will be back...they always come back.

wanda

shadylanejewel · Post by **shadylanejewel** » Mar 04, 2005 11:41 am

WoW Wanda - Incredible - your "rush job" looks gorgeous.

Should have spent more time exploring your website photos when I was there looking at the Hats.

How much property do you have? Looks like a park!

We have 8 acres and a lot of it is very hilly and rocky. The soil in this site I'm digging in to

is very rich and easy to work in. I'm sure it was beautifully landscaped back in the 60's and has just been taken over by the ferns and salal.

Where did you find your "Best Rock"? Love it!

Wanda · Post by **Wanda** » Mar 04, 2005 12:20 pm

Thank you so much! We have 26 acres here, almost all thick, rich old forest with huge trees. The new garden went into this area because it had the least trees and younger ones (and my hoses reach that far). Working on this area was in the “10 yr. plan”...but had been planning on doing the whole job over 10 yrs. - not in one, for sure (hehe). Boy, was I in trouble when I started physical therapy in Sept. and they found out what I had been doing all summer (hehe). Glad I was mostly done at that point!

Got my best rock and those other big ones from our farmer neighbor’s field. ‘Walked’ it home behind a 1937 JD tractor...with its front tires in the air! It scraped two furrows into the road about a foot deep - should have seen us out there with shovels and rakes hiding the damage (hehe). Glad we live on a dead end road with only Grandpa and a distant cousin, so nobody ratted us out to the road commission! Sure do envy your rocky and hilly terrain! Love rocks and hills in a garden. Not many rocks here and just gentle hills (but none in this garden). My husband drives semi, and sometimes I go with him. Have rocks from all over the US and Canada lining all garden beds except in the new garden...need a fresh supply of rocks!

Aren’t you glad you have good soil to start? Makes it so much easier! Our area is black sandy loam, so I just added between 4-7 tons of composted manure, the same volume of leafmould mixed with alfalfa and bark chips and a couple inches of peat moss. The bark chips are a new idea - our soil is very finely textured and wanted to add some bigger voids for air. Since all the hosta I buy are in bark chip mixes, and I have a forest full of the raw material and a big chipper/shredder, thought I would try it out in the new garden. Hope it works!

It does look like your area was landscaped at one point, or at least kept trimmed back. That should help getting started.

Don’t forget to take lots of before/after pictures and keep us posted as you work on it! Building new gardens is so much fun...

wanda