NBR - landscaping advice w/PIP

ArcticFox

Hope you guys don't mind.. I posted on the gardening board but I didn't really get help.. I'm getting desperate because we'll probably rip the stuff out soon and I have no clue what to do. 

Anyway when we bought our house, the plants hadn't been maintained. I tried to trim the plants with a hedge trimmer, and they look SO much better, but they are still in sad shape & scraggly (PIP below - the dark green hedge, and the 5 arborvitae on the right).  At this point I plan to rip them all out and start from scratch.  The branch you see at the top of the pic is a huge oak in the middle of the front yard, so I'm trying to make the house look a little less crowded.

 

We actually ripped out some half-dead azaleas along the house and replaced them with euonymous bushes (on the right, below)

 

I like the euonymous plants - green year round, low to the ground.  Any suggestions what to replace the arborvitae/evergreen with?  I plan on making a mulched bed like the euonymous are in (on the other side of the walkway where the evergreens are).

BTW we have a two story house, the porch goes along the length of the front, and next week we are getting tan/beige siding.  I will also neaten the bricks and the borders around the beds etc.   Thanks for any ideas!  Like I have no idea what to do.. hostas?  New "baby" cedars?  Like plants vs bushes?

Kristen61607

Well it really depends on the look you're going for. Do you like the well trimmed "english garden" type look?If so, I'd stick to bushes....basically like what you have, but healthier looking!

Or do you like lots of flowering perennials with some variety?

I think hostas would look good - but I wouldn't do JUST hostas - I'd bring in some perennials. Hostas also don't do very well in full sun, but your yard looks relatively shady.  I think some hydrangea bushes would look really nice as well! I have some "endless summer" hydrangeas that are already blooming and they literally stay flowered all summer.

ArcticFox

I'm probably looking for something a little smaller than hydrangeas.. and probably something that offers greenery through the winter (not just flowers), but I could alternate something among hostas..

 Congrats on keeping your babies cooking!  Glad you were able to come home from the hospital.. are you on bedrest?

jnk062602

DH went and got our plants and bushes - he is good with that stuff. So I don't know what any of them are called. But when we ripped down the old brick wall and took out the large bushes, he put in extremely small bushes. Half of them are really small regular looking bushes, but they haven't needed to be trimmed at all yet. And the other half look like tall (below knee though) grass bush. Sorry, I'm horrible with plants so have no idea what they are called. We also took down 2 huge pines and trimmed back the branches. Maybe you can have your DH take off that branch that is so close to the house? The front of our house looks entirely different now - so open. I never would have picked out such tiny bushes, but now I love how clean and open the front looks and could never go back. I can try to take a pic later this week and post of the bushes we have if you want, maybe someone else would know the names.

orangeluck

I like the idea of something green year round for the front row there that will stand up visible to snow;  boxwood and holly come in all different sizes; maybe spaced with something pretty and flowering or with some color variation inbetween along the walk and larger in the area near the window with annuals in front for color.  At the corner and dip I'd do something special; something with height or flowering or interesting (DH likes redtwig dogwood so we have that).

We had a great experience at a local garden place when we ripped out our overgrown shrubs, first we walked our neighborhood on our own to see what we liked; then we measured and described our space and they layed the whole thing out for us walking us through the plants and giving us differnt options and made a map on graph paper to show us spacing.  They were really good about being creative with color/balance/scale and it was free.  Instead of us being clueless the whole process was kind of fun.  Oh and they knew what would attract deer if that is something you need to avoid.

Irisheyes1247

I personally like the look of bushes. I think if you replaced the arborvitae with boxwood, that would be really nice. That would hide the other side of your walk though. Like PP suggested, some boxwoods spaced out with a few annuals would look really nice.

Kristen61607

ArcticFox:

 Congrats on keeping your babies cooking!  Glad you were able to come home from the hospital.. are you on bedrest?

Thank you! We're all shocked, in a good way, that they are still inside babies!  

I am on bedrest but my dr. said I could start moving around more now since it would be ok if they came. However my pelvis is in so much pain that I physically can't....so I guess I'm couch ridden for another 2 weeks (at the most).