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Hi, all. I'm in southern New Hampshire, garden zone 5A (looks like I'm close to 5B too). It's been cold and gloomy here lately, so I am looking forward to spring and am thinking about more curb appeal for my house. This is my front yard (the 2nd photo is the view from the bottom left of the driveway):
(BTW the Porsche in the first photo is the previous owner's, lol ... I drive a Hyundai! )
The front yard gets some sun later in the day, but not a whole lot. I am not going to do much with the shrubs at this point (other than trim them!), as in a few years I will be adding a big front porch to change the Colonial to a farmhouse look (lots of houses in my neighborhoods have big beautiful front porches, and I have always loved them) and so all those shrubs will be removed (or moved elsewhere). That tree that looks really close to the front door will also be coming out in the next couple of years -- it's not as close as it looks, and so far it doesn't seem to have caused any damage anywhere, but I don't like it there.
Last spring/summer (I moved in last May), I did container gardening around the path that leads from the driveway to the front door -- filled containers of various sizes/shapes with flowers. That looked pretty, but I'd like to do something more this year, and maybe more PERMANENT too.
I was thinking of planting flower beds parallel to the driveway, 2-3' in, and then following the path to the front door (just imagine a path from the driveway, to right in front of those shrubs, to the front door) with more flowers. Do you think that would look OK? Should I plant perrennials or annuals? Any specific suggestions?
I also have a tree bench (surrounds the tree) from my last house that I would love to put up here ... or just a "regular" bench if I can fit it in somewhere. (I love that look, very warm and inviting.)
Also, the "room" at the back left of the house is a full-screened porch, about 12'x17'. My cats love it. I will be adding some hanging baskets to the outside front of it (as well as around the front & service doors).
I am COMPLETELY new to gardening so ANY help would be great. Thanks in advance!
Hi from another freezing cold New Englander! In the front by the entrance you might like tuborous begonias. They do great in the shade and our New England acidic soils and the colors--WOW! They come in lots of bright colors and the look exotic and glow in the shade. They can handle some sunlight and they do great in pots. Not the tiny wax begonias but the BIG tuborous begonias. You can buy the tubors and plant them in your own garden soil and just keep them moist all summer or you can buy the actual plants. Masses of them would look amazing.
If those are yews (the shrubs) get rid of them someday and plant something like azaleas or more of the rhododendrons which you already have. They do great in your type of soil and shade and require just some acid loving fertilizer in the fall, if anything. Trimming yews is not fun after a while.
If those are white pines in the front yard, you will grow to hate them. They don't give shade and they are always making a mess, dropping something for you to rake up. You get to rake up pine cones in the spring and you get a mess of pine needles to rake up in the fall. Also, the are not a sturdy tree so they get knocked over a lot in storms and they even break in half. But while you do have them, save the pine needles and spread them around your rhododendrons for mulch. The mulch will hold in moisture and give some winter protection for the rhododendrons which are shallow rooted.
For a gorgeous tree that will grow in your yard and not get overly tall, you could try a white flowering dogwood. Another good choice for your conditions would be
Kwanzan Japanese flowing cherry--white might look better against your color house. They are GORGEOUS.
You can grow ivy and holly really well in your conditions. Anything that thrives in sandy, acidic soil---that's what to look for and make sure it can live through our winters.
Vinca (periwinkle) will do well but you have to trim it every so often. The nice thing is that it keeps
having flowers all summer long. It spreads so it looks great in front of a stone wall or a fence but it can go up against the side of a house too. Great for shade. I'll be back with more.
Last edited by in_newengland; 01-31-2013 at 05:03 PM..
I was gonna suggest your exact plan. I think it would look lovely. I woud do mostly perennials, a little more cost initially....but long term a more cost effective approach, as perennials come back every year. Then, many people fill in areas w/ annuals every season. I really like the idea of your having those beds, and would also consider doing a sort of kidney shape bed on either side of the front of the house, back a lil bit from the cement work, but flowing the length of the house's width. Does that make sense. I'll try to find some sort of pic for an example.
Here is a good publication for tips & ideas http://advicebergs.com/tip/Landscaping-Your-Yard.php
*****Free Online Garden Interactive Website http://www.bhg.com/gardening/design/...|e|12219488818
Gardening w/ Perennials http://urbanext.illinois.edu/perennials/
Last edited by JanND; 01-31-2013 at 04:51 PM..
Reason: added links
Actually, you could leave the one pine tree that's close to the road. One might not be too much trouble and it gives you some privacy. I had the identical conditions and your house could have been any house on my street.
For my front yard, it had been professionally landscaped before I moved there. Here's what they had done: in the front, off to the left they there were trees and a few huge rocks. Around those they planted a mixture of flowering azaleas and blue rug (low spreading) juniper bushes. It was stunning. There were a few cotoneasters mixed in and they would get orange berries in the fall.
It was contained within a large, nearly oval area and mulched with wood chips. This looked like a natural woodland garden and so it fit in with the woodland neighborhood and native plants. Low maintenance and just wow. The talk of the entire neighborhood.
I had a white dogwood at the other side, near the garage but a flowering cherry would have been my other choice or maybe a Japanese maple.
You definitely need a lilac bush if you don't already have one. It needs sun or it will get a white mildew all over the leaves and they look good at the corners of the house on the south side for sun. They smell incredibly great and have some of the best flowers for cutting.
A lot can be done with flowering shrubs and they're less maintenance than flower plants.
You can have simple rugosa roses which bloom all summer long if you have at least partial sun--they look cheery and fancy and I like them for the back yard. No trouble at all either. Great for around your screened porch because of the way they look and the way they smell. They come in white or red and shades of pink.
I'm not sure what kind of flowers would be good for the front of the house besides the tuborous begonias. A path with flowers on each side would work and you could put begonias in the ground but you'd have to dig them up in the fall. I had them in pots on the steps and I think a few pots of them is the best way to go, not to line a path with them.
You could use stella d'oro day lilies by the path as they flower all the time. They are compact and they'll come back every year and they do well in your conditions.
You could line the path with these and they will be bright and colorful all summer and even into fall. Plant them in the ground and just leave them alone--easy--bright and colorful year after year. Look how many flowers there are on each plant!!!
I'd love to see a native birch tree in your front yard. Around the base you can plant vinca vine (see above) in a circle--no work except to trim it so it doesn't spread too much. It (vinca=periwinkle) will come back year after year and it fits in well with the natural surroundings.
Another nice tree is any kind of Japanese maple. They are small and decorative, sort of like the dogwood and the cherry but they don't get flowers, only gorgeous bright leaves.
Those are some ideas and I hope they're worth something. I loved landscaping my back yard and adding a shade garden and some more natural landscaping to the back. If you have a level area that needs to be filled in, you might want to consider something that worked amazingly for me--Japanese crested iris. WOW. In the spring. They just sit there with their short green foliage and you don't have to do anything but they are showy in the spring.
Remember: "for sandy, acidic soil." That's the key besides getting the right zone. For fertilizer: bonemeal is king. It makes the soil less acidic. For the first few years, everything I planted died or was spindly and I didn't know why. Then I read about bonemeal and it was the magic bullet that I added every time I planted anything. I would also add it to things that were already growing. Not for acid loving plants like azaleas and Rhododendrons though. Save your used coffee grounds for them, they eat it right up!
Last edited by in_newengland; 01-31-2013 at 05:10 PM..
Hi Karen!! First of all - your house is HUGE, and beautiful!! We live in the same growing zone as you do which surprises me, but I do love the idea of the the beds bordering the driveway. I would absolutely go with perennials and they are a little more expensive to start with, but they pretty much take care of themselves down the road. There are also some that are biennial and need to be dug up and split about every 2-3 years (I usually avoid those ones!) One thing I would think about is that if you have plants that close to your driveway and you use salt on your driveway in the winter it may kill them, or you could inadvertently run them over while they are covered with snow and uproot some of them (my hubby did that last year..grrr). I like to have something blooming all year round and I like lots of color. I have a huge bed in our front yard that is bordered with dianthus (aka pinks) which bloom in the early-mid spring and they are pink, with a silvery green foliage. They are related to Carnations and look like tiny ones, and they smell divine. The scent wafts in the air and I can smell it in my kitchen. They are perennial and they do spread. I have tons of daylillies which you plant and forget basically. They come in wonderful colors and if you get the re-bloomers they bloom initially in early-mid summer and then again towards fall. At our old house we had a big sun room like yours, and it was cat heaven - I dug up an area around the entire room and added manure and worked it into the soil - then I did some mass plantings of daylillies and Coneflowers. They attracted bees and birds, and hummingbirds and the cats spent hours in that room looking out the windows and laying on their furniture. Towards fall, I have Chrysanthemums in bloom (they are supposedly hardy but I have trouble getting them to live more than a season or two), and last fall I just planted about 200 bulbs which I am anxious to see this spring. I planted grape hyacinth, tulips, and daffodils. The bed out front with the Dianthus also has tulips and grape hyacinth as well as some Ornamental Grass. You have a blank slate to work with, and it will be hard work but you will enjoy it immensely. The big box stores have nice basic plants, and you should find a nursery near you and just walk around and see what you like, take some pictures and notes, talk to some of the workers there and they will be able to give you some good advice. They may even have some classes or something to help you along. Have fun with it....I love mine!!!
Hi from another freezing cold New Englander! In the front by the entrance you might like tuborous begonias. They do great in the shade and our New England acidic soils and the colors--WOW! They come in lots of bright colors and the look exotic and glow in the shade. They can handle some sunlight and they do great in pots. Not the tiny wax begonias but the BIG tuborous begonias. You can buy the tubors and plant them in your own garden soil and just keep them moist all summer or you can buy the actual plants. Masses of them would look amazing.
If those are yews (the shrubs) get rid of them someday and plant something like azaleas or more of the rhododendrons which you already have. They do great in your type of soil and shade and require just some acid loving fertilizer in the fall, if anything. Trimming yews is not fun after a while.
If those are white pines in the front yard, you will grow to hate them. They don't give shade and they are always making a mess, dropping something for you to rake up. You get to rake up pine cones in the spring and you get a mess of pine needles to rake up in the fall. Also, the are not a sturdy tree so they get knocked over a lot in storms and they even break in half. But while you do have them, save the pine needles and spread them around your rhododendrons for mulch. The mulch will hold in moisture and give some winter protection for the rhododendrons which are shallow rooted.
For a gorgeous tree that will grow in your yard and not get overly tall, you could try a white flowering dogwood. Another good choice for your conditions would be
Kwanzan Japanese flowing cherry--white might look better against your color house. They are GORGEOUS.
You can grow ivy and holly really well in your conditions. Anything that thrives in sandy, acidic soil---that's what to look for and make sure it can live through our winters.
Vinca (periwinkle) will do well but you have to trim it every so often. The nice thing is that it keeps
having flowers all summer long. It spreads so it looks great in front of a stone wall or a fence but it can go up against the side of a house too. Great for shade. I'll be back with more.
Wow, you have some great ideas and the trees are wonderful. The only thing I wanted to add was that my experience with tuberous begonias has always been abysmal. I have birds plucking at them, and then I had trouble with some kind of rot - like I over-watered them or something and the leaves and stems would just turn dark and fall off. I know they were healthy when I bought them - I always went to a local nursery and everything I bought there was great, except them. Even the little pink begonias - the annuals - die when they come home with me. I tried saving the tubers with no luck either. But, they are beautiful, and the colors are superb.
Wow, you have some great ideas and the trees are wonderful. The only thing I wanted to add was that my experience with tuberous begonias has always been abysmal. I have birds plucking at them, and then I had trouble with some kind of rot - like I over-watered them or something and the leaves and stems would just turn dark and fall off. I know they were healthy when I bought them - I always went to a local nursery and everything I bought there was great, except them. Even the little pink begonias - the annuals - die when they come home with me. I tried saving the tubers with no luck either. But, they are beautiful, and the colors are superb.
Maybe tuberous begonias are hard to grow (I was spelling it wrong, thanks for getting it right!)
Now that I think of it, I had that happen too with the leaves turning black and just rotting off. I wonder if it was from over watering. I seldom had any luck saving the tubers over the winter but I did have a cold attic so it's better than what I have now, which is no attic (wait! I do have a crawl space). I'll have to try it again this year.
You should see what I deal with now. Tiny stitch of sand and that's it for a garden. I may post for ideas although I did augment the sand last year and planted rugosas and some other stuff.
I think the OP should try the begonias in a few pots anyway and even if she can't overwinter the tubers, just buy a few more pots the next year. I did that and it wasn't that expensive. For everything else, I bought perennials and made sure they survived.
It sounds like the garden area you want to improve is mostly north facing and/or under a tree canopy. If that is true you will want to look into shade gardening for plant suggestions.
For the permanent plants you spoke about the term is perennials. The first plant that comes to mind for easy gardening and some flowers are Hosta. They have many varieties now with exotic leaf coloring and different height and boom time that you can have a pretty effect with little else. Another favorite is Astilbe which put out beautiful bright plumes and have some very pretty shades of pinks, lilac, red and white. One of the best bangs for the buck in my old shaded zone 5 garden were perennial geraniums which will bloom on and off most of the summer without any real care and are left alone by deer. Some places refer to it as Cranesbill or Hardy Geranium- these are not the same as "geraniums" that we think of as summer pot plants.
One of my favorites has been one whose old fashioned name is a turn off: Lungwort. In garden catalogs it is called by its Latin name of Pulmonaria. It needs fairly regular watering but is tough once established and its small flowers are pretty up close and make drifts of colors from further away. There are also Brunnera which I cannot grow as well here in the heat of summer but should be happy as clams along your walk way.
More "unusual" plants that will make it in your yard if kept mulched and slightly protected in the winter would be Hellebors (aka Christmas rose and Lenten Rose for the times they bloom). They are becoming more and more popular because they stretch your garden bloom time into the winter. Some of the newer flower varieties are really pretty now.
Another plant I have come to love is the Heuchera and its cousin the Heucherella. The first is often called coral bells for the bell flowers it has on tall stalks, but the main attraction of many of the varieties is the unusual leaf colors that you can see from pretty far away. I have some that are so dark red/purple they are almost black, some that are a brilliant bright green, and some that are variations of caramel colors.
There are tons more "shade plants" but the above are the most readily available plants in nurseries.
To stretch the bloom season you may also want to leave spots to put in bulbs next fall. A few will be happy like Fritallaria, Spanish Bluebells (they loved having about 3 hours of sun per day in early spring) and daffodils. Look for daffodils for northern climates when ordering them for the varieties best suited for cold and shaded areas since many are more sun loving than not.
Mix in annuals like shorter varieties of ageratum, or begonias with the above perennials and you will have a fairly easy to maintain and somewhat colorful shade garden. A word of warning for anyone with shaded gardens: I've been hearing more and more about a problem with standard impatiens and a mildew that needs an intensive spray program to keep them alive. I've been telling people not to buy them until resistant strains are found. The more sun loving ones like New Guineas and SunPatiens will be fine they don't seem to be effected.
I love the plantings in front of your house! That's got to help make your house cozy in winter! Maybe the corner shrubs could be a foot or so taller, for a little height contrast. Looks like you have gorgeous Rhododendrons.
I think an English-style 'mixed border', with roses, foliage plants, flowering perennials would be lovely in front of the shrubbery. You've already got that nice narrow walk in front of part of the foundation planting. I'd extend that, so that you'd have a path for weeding, between the shrubbery and the mixed border. The path only needs to be eighteen or so inches wide, and would be invisible from most angles. The border would be five or six feet wide. The flowers would show up so beautifully, in front of that gorgeous dark green background. The best English borders are all planned in front of hedges, for that reason (and to shelter the plantings from winds).
I'm seeing shade-tolerant roses, Astilbe, terrestrial orchids... New Hampshire is a lot colder than Western Oregon, so I can't tell you what will work with your bitter cold and short growing season. So your local nurseries will be the experts on what will work, and which specific cultivars work best. Actually, Sara B. Stein, who wrote Noah's Garden and Planting Noah's Garden, lived not too terribly far from you (Westchester, NY). Her plants lists may mesh well with what you can grow. Noah's Garden was published at a crucial time for me, and really helped me plan the gardens at our "Forever Home" in Mississippi. Got me on board with using native plants and establishing a healthy ecosystem. Bluebirds, Hummingbirds, and butterflies abounded, people were sticking their cameras through the gates, to get pictures of the blossoms, and moms out with strollers would pause to smell whatever was blooming in our courtyards.... until we decided to move west... at which point, the enlightened plantings certainly were a factor in the ridiculously high offers we were getting for the property. And actually, Stein's approach readied me for what we're doing at our new house... basically restoring the old fields around the house as meadowland and half-wild orchard (with a few perennial/edible borders near the house). I have people out right now, insinuating a wider range of species into the meadow.
You know, Witch Hazels are such slight trees, they'd fit into a mixed border. Do they bloom during New Hampshire winters, like they do here in Oregon? As for smaller, shade-tolerant things, there are gorgeous ferns, Cyclamen, Hellebores... And how about Daphnes? Then again, there are smaller varieties of Rhododendron, perfect for a border. As far north as you are, I'm sure there are endless bulbs I've never heard of. Too, hyacinths probably are truly perennial for you.
And naturaly, dahling... there are always the Hostas.
Last edited by GrandviewGloria; 02-01-2013 at 10:11 AM..
In_NewEngland, thanks so much for the detailed replies and all those photos -- they are gorgeous! I loved having a lot of different flowers in the containers last year but really look forward to making permanent beds this spring/summer.
There's a nursery less than a mile from my house and I suspect I will be visiting them a lot in the next few months. I will see if they offer classes too.
JanND, thanks for the links! I love BHG -- sometimes get overwhelmed with all the gorgeous photos on that site.
CFoulke, yes, the house is bigger than I need although I do have houseguests fairly often and at some point my SO will probably move in. I mostly bought the house because of the lot -- it is 1.29 acres (most of which is my back yard) but still on city water/sewer, which is extremely rare in my area for lots that size. I am going to start with the front yard for the curb appeal and hopefully next year will tackle the back yard -- it is so big that I want to plan it carefully first.
J&Em and GrandviewGloria, yes, the front yard is on the north side of the house so a bit of sun but much more shade. I will look into your suggestions especially Hostas. Gloria, I will also look for those books -- reading is usually the first thing I do when I want to learn something new!
A few more questions for all of you, if I may! I was thinking of making raised beds for the flowers -- thought it would (a) make them stand out a bit more and (b) make original planting easier. I would likely do raised beds parallel to the driveway (as I said in my OP) plus on the other side -- kind of symmetrical but not exactly, as I'm not big on symmetry and my house isn't totally symmetrical thanks to the '70s addition on the right and the screened porch on the left. Any thoughts on raised beds? I am thinking of making little paths around them ... kind of meandering with a bench in there somewhere.
I don't want to do too much with the shrubs in front since they will have to be removed/moved when I add the front porch in a few years.
Thanks for the replies so far -- I will rep you all if I haven't already!
Last edited by karen_in_nh_2012; 02-04-2013 at 03:32 AM..
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Tiny stitch of sand and that's it for a garden. I may post for ideas although I did augment the sand last year and planted rugosas and some other stuff. 
