Suggestions? Xeriscape? (flower, landscape, grown, grass)

[teatime]

Hey, y'all! I recently hired a landscaper to come up with something attractive and care-free to do with an area of the "lawn" in front of my house. He's on vacation next week but his crew is starting the process on Monday by preparing the ground and killing off the existing weedy vegetation. When he returns, he's going to draw up some plans and we're going to discuss ideas so I'd like to have some thoughts in mind. That's where y'all come in!

The area is a rectangle about 18 X 24 feet, I'd imagine, next to my double driveway/carport. Then, there's about a 5-foot alley type of space that runs along the side of the house and ends at the privacy fence.

It's funny, because the previous owners took great pains to landscape the rest of the yard which is fenced in with white picket and privacy fencing but they did NOTHING with this section. I tried to beautify it by digging up a bed directly in front of the house and planting Burford holly bushes, and installing river rock around the bushes in the bed. I kept up with the weeds well but we've had ideal weather these past several weeks and the weeds have gone nuts -- they're trying to choke out my holly bushes!

Two months ago, I used a power cultivator to dig up the entire section and applied weed killer, then I planted asiatic jasmine groundcover. The groundcover was thriving and starting to spread but the weeds came back with a vengeance and are choking it out, sigh. The landscaper identified four stubborn, weedy grasses that are just beyond anything I can eradicate on my own.

So, he is clearing the area with power tools and applying something called "Erase" that will get rid of the weeds once and for all, he said. (It will likely take two applications.) He's going to preserve the holly bushes but the rest will be a blank slate.

Any ideas what I can do with this area? I'm thinking of xeriscape but don't know if I can afford that. I thinking of covering both sections thickly with mulch or river rock and then having beds and squares of ornamental plants, especially along the driveway and street frontage. But it gets awfully windy here oftentimes and I obviously don't want mulch or pebbles blowing everywhere! But I don't want to have to mow, either!

Help!

[fierce_flawless]

Okay this may seem obvious but if your gardener is solving the weed problem, then why not try the Asiatic Jasmine again? I mean, if the problem was with the weeds in the first place, not the jasmine itself?

Sorry, I don't have many other suggestions. Asiatic Jasmine is what I'm planning for my "yard" too.... I just haven't done it yet so for now I have big bare patches and some clover and it looks a mess. I am anti-mowing though, and I'm leaving my backyard grassy so I have to mow that and it's huge. Anything I can do to eliminate front mowing is fine by me! Others have suggested using stone walkways with mulch and small beds here and there.

[teatime]

I feel exactly the same way about the mowing, fierce. The rest of my sizable yard is fenced in and this portion lies outside of the fencing. I just don't want to deal with it but I do want it to look nice.

I'm at the point where I don't want to tend that section regularly. Even the asiatic jasmine would need lots of watering until it was established and it would need to be thinned and trimmed to prevent it from spilling into the neighbor's yard, my driveway, and the street. Or am I thinking it would be more work than it actually would be?

The other thing I worry about is that if we replant any sort of groundcover there that I'm going to have to water, the weeds and persistent grasses will return. That's what happened this last time. Even though I cleared it and put down weed killer, since I had to water the asiatic jasmine, the dang weeds came back in time.

Heh, so I'm leaning toward a scorched earth policy with something attractive and impermeable to cover the ground and then maybe raised beds or something?

[fierce_flawless]

Originally Posted by teatime

I feel exactly the same way about the mowing, fierce. The rest of my sizable yard is fenced in and this portion lies outside of the fencing. I just don't want to deal with it but I do want it to look nice.

I'm at the point where I don't want to tend that section regularly. Even the asiatic jasmine would need lots of watering until it was established and it would need to be thinned and trimmed to prevent it from spilling into the neighbor's yard, my driveway, and the street. Or am I thinking it would be more work than it actually would be?

The other thing I worry about is that if we replant any sort of groundcover there that I'm going to have to water, the weeds and persistent grasses will return. That's what happened this last time. Even though I cleared it and put down weed killer, since I had to water the asiatic jasmine, the dang weeds came back in time.

Heh, so I'm leaning toward a scorched earth policy with something attractive and impermeable to cover the ground and then maybe raised beds or something?

I don't know, I wish I had the answers... I have basically the same questions though. I *think* the jasmine stays pretty low and shouldn't need much trimming but yeah, it's going to need water until it's established. I imagine if you put edging material in then it wouldn't spread to the neighbor's or the street. Have you looked at other groundcover options? There are websites all over that categorize them by your zone, and how high they grow, and how fast, etc. I picked Asiatic Jasmine for my future plans because the area I need to cover is a mix of sun and shade, and it supposedly needs little water once established.. and I'm in zone 8 (South Central TX).

I am forever having some stupid lawnmower issue. When I had gas ones there was always something wrong. Much like a car. So I would end up with the back breaking task of WEED EATING the whole yard ( ) or paying someone to mow it.

Now I have an electric and it had something wrong, was fixed, but now someone stole my darned heavy duty extension cord that I just bought last summer... and those things aren't cheap! I had to buy a super long one since my yard is VERY long and skinny. So right now my front is looking overgrown and scraggly and I can't fix it until I buy a new cord. It's always something but I figure if I eliminate the grass in front at least I won't have code compliance on my back.. if the back yard gets a wee bit long no one sees it! Nothing like having a code compliance warning and no money and no mower.

I'd get a goat if I didn't have other stuff I didn't want eaten!

So if I were you I'd think about maybe some attractive flagstone or brick pathways with raised beds. If I had the money I'd do that here. At least in the front, where the kids and dogs never go anyway. In the back I want to at least do some partial xeriscaping, leaving some grassy areas for the kids and dogs but not the whole darn thing!

Right now I don't have money even for the jasmine in front, so I just have to keep looking at my ugly dirt patch/weeds/clover. I thought about tossing out some various flower seeds (cheap) to just see what happens.