Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I am thinking of the below plan for the front yard. Please can you suggest me any other ideas of making the front yard look good? I am a first time gardener and hence I am sticking with the plants which are easy to grow.
Here is the description of my front yard. The lot is divided into two squares, 12x12 each lot divided by the walk way.
* The first lot contains two tall trees with 3 feet spacing. I am planning to raise the bed around each tree and plant threadleaf thickseed’s (yellow color). I will be buying these plants in container and will be transplanting them in early spring as soon as the nursery starts to sell them.
* I am stuck with the second lot (just by my house) which contains 2 small bushes (about 1 foot tall) with 3 foot spacing. These bushes don’t flower but… they kind of look good. So I don’t want to pull them out. I was thinking of planting Purple Coneflowers and Black eyed Susan in between the bushes and plant Pansies around the bushes. How do you think this would look? Also I don’t want to be planting too many flower plants in the front yard.
Any other suggestions as to what I might grow in here apart from the above mentioned flowers?
Without any pictures or location and just going by your description, we don't really have enough information.
I can tell you that planting pansies with black eyed susans and cone flower may not be the best idea. Pansies do best in cooler weather and really peter out in the heat. The other two are heat loving flowers. Pansies are also rather small and if you're trying to populate a vacant lot, two bushes and a couple of flowers won't do the trick.
Without any pictures or location and just going by your description, we don't really have enough information.
I can tell you that planting pansies with black eyed susans and cone flower may not be the best idea. Pansies do best in cooler weather and really peter out in the heat. The other two are heat loving flowers. Pansies are also rather small and if you're trying to populate a vacant lot, two bushes and a couple of flowers won't do the trick.
I will try to upload a few pictures tomorrow, hopefully that will help. I am in Toronto, Canada. So its still very cold here.
Like you said, I will upload the fort yard picture and maybe then you can suggest more on this...
I'm no expert, but generally raising the bed around a tree is not a good idea. Trees have bark above the ground and roots below, and you generally shouldn't mess with it.
Depending upon the tree, though, you could still put edging stones in a large circle around the trees, scratch up the lawn inside the stone border and toss in a little topsoil to give a base to some new plantings.
Tickseed (coreopsis) generally like sun. Pansies need cooler weather and probably won't last much past early summer, even in Toronto. Coneflowers and Black-eyed Susans need sun, too, and with those trees you might have too much shade going on there for them to be happy.
It sounds like you have some good ideas, though. You could post a picture here, but why not take a picture to your nursery, too? Tell them what you have in mind and how much you want to spend and they should be able to tell you what would grow best with little maintenance on your part.
I'll 2nd the comment from the previous poster. Do not raise the soil level around existing trees. You may not see an immediate affect, but there will be a definite gradual decline in the general health of the trees.
Thanks all for the suggestions. Here is the picture of my front yard in summers (now its filled with snow). The tree is still growing but its not too big yet, thats why I was thinking it should be ok. Can you all suggest if pansies, black eyed susan etc can still be planted or I need to look into different kind of flowers?
I like a garden that blooms from early spring to late fall. So I'll put in daffodils and narcissus that come back every year from bulbs, and scatter them in the garden. Then just as they are dying back, low-growing dianthus in the front, maybe petunias or medium-sized plants in the middle, and gladiolus in the back for their spikes of color midsummer. My stepfather bred daylilies of all colors so I have them scattered about, mostly on the sides or in the back since they get fairly high.
You might want to look at garden books that sell flowers for ready-made flower beds; some do shade gardens, some do spring bloom, some do summer bloom - and pick out the flowers that you might like and buy them seperately. (All too often I find that these places sell flowers indiscriminately no matter what zone or region you are in; so I never BUY their whole garden plots - just see what grows where, how big, what colors and shapes I like.) Remember that you can intersparse herbs or green plants or even dusty miller to add color and contrast. Elephant ears (caladium) is good for damp spots and some types have red or yellow in the leaves and add color interest without flowers; they make a good contrast or background plant. But if it is REALLY damp, they can grow to be HUGE so be careful!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
