Sorry, bad links above. This should fix the problem.

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Grass? Do you need a groundcover there, it doesn't look too steep to mow?

I think rather than replacing the juniper with a whole bunch of one thing, you might want to think of the reviving the whole bed, as it were. Sharpen up the entire edge, make the sweep of the bed slightly more elegant...just a little cutting in with a spade along the perimeter will make the whole bed look much nicer.

Your house is crying out for color and the spruce is stuck out there all by itself. The bed looks unfinished, really. Picture this. Three knock-out rose bushes (easy care, bloom all season) along the perimeter of the corner edge (planted in an L-shape). Then a grouping of three or five daylilies(or some similar easy care, medium high flowering perennial) in front of the spruce and behind the lowest part of the brick wall. Then leave a couple of junipers and plant groupings of low-to-medium high mounded perennials, shrubs or annuals. Remove a couple of junipers in the middle of the bed, but leave a couple to anchor the other end.

Some thoughts. Also, maybe next year, a brown mulch.

Patty

Patty, that sounds great, but unfortunately I'm on a tight budget. Just looking to keep it simple for now. Any other ideas?

coeng, I really don't think that Patty's idea of the roses and daylilies would cost you that much more than groundcover replacing all of the juniper. Plus, by following her suggestion, you're only taking out a couple of the juniper in the middle rather than gutting the whole thing and starting over.

You wouldn't have to plant *everything* she suggests in the first year -- believe me, I understand needing to budget! But if you were to get the three knockouts and three daylilies and plant them in the way Patty suggests, you'd have a gorgeous beginning. More perennials and shrubs could come in as you find sales later in the year, or even next year.

I'm not really fond of roses. But the daylillies around the spruce are a good idea. What other kinds of perrenials are low-growing and love sun? Perhaps I will only remove a few junipers.

Is it too late in the season to plant perrenials now?

Patty, I tried brown mulch one year. It fades too quickly in the bright sun and didn't like the appearance. That's why I went back to red.

Roses wouldn't fit the "low and crawls on the ground, but not prickly and "bunchy" like the junipers" description too well IMO, have you considered some vineing ground cover? I'm not sure what would be the best option but I'm sure you could find something that in a few years with a littler training could cover the entire area for about 10 dollars, the trade off is that it wouldn't look very good till you had made the conversion from masculin junipers to a feminine broadleaf groundcover.

Before the heavy rains this weekend, I had a chance to remove some of the junipers from the bed. I removed all from the right side except the one on the extreme end. They were growing into each other. It was nasty and moldy underneath. I will take a photo today of what it looks like now before I take any others out.

Was thinking about planting some Bearberry Massachussets and daylillies to start. Yes/No ?

The bearberry Massachussetts (arctostaphylos uva-ursi Massachussetts) is slow to start but very satisfying; IME space about 20" and keep your mulch for a couple of years.

The Uva ursi (bearberry) is an expensive plant, very slow to increase, and is difficult to grow in many parts of the country. In sun, it is close to impossible, especially if you don't get the kind of rain the Pacific Northwest gets. Vinca or Pachysandra terminalis, though common, would meet your needs. Both are available in variegated cultivars, which would make the whole bed a little more interesting.

I have Cotton Easter mixed in with my juniper and I love it. The texture is beautiful - and it looks good in the fall with it's lovely red berries and in the winter with snow clinging to it's branches.

Cotton Easter, if I remember, is part of the rose family and is perfect for ground cover.

Google it!

Got my first ever internet-order this weekend of live plants. Massachusetts Bearberry, three 4-inch plants. They must have arrived Saturday afternoon via UPS. I left for the Jersey short Sat morning and did not return until late Sun night. Opened them immediately but I don't know if they suffered permanent damage from the heat (it was hot on Sat and even worse on Sunday). The package was shaded near my mailbox so it might not be that bad. Any opinons?

I didn't think that the plants would be that small. Tiny. I only got three to see how well the whole internet-order process would fare. I'm afraid that if I plant these as they are (spaced 2 feet apart like it says to), they won't be seen from more than 5 feet away. How fast do these grow, especially considering the heat of July in NJ? Should I buy more and plant them closer together?

dawn, it's all one word cottoneaster pronounced
cot-tone-E-aster.

Try getting your color from plants and leave the "McMulch" for fast food joints. Besides, dyed mulches are ground up industrial wood that can be contaminated with oils, heavy metals and arsenic.

In answer to your question,coeng, bearberry are very slow to increase and difficult to grow. I would think an open sunny NJ bank is asking for disappointment. I suggested Vinca or Pachysandra in a previous post. Give them a look.

In that case, I will do something else with the bearberry then and look into the vinca and pachysandras. I will also be planting daylillies.

On a related subject, last week I removed a good chunk of the junipers. See photos below of what it looks like today. I left the one on the right as an anchor as Patty suggested. I'm trying to figure out if I should remove more from the left side. I'm thinking about removing the left-most one since it looks like it dying anyway.

Where do I go from here? I'm going to let you guys redesign this for me. What other shrubs/perrenials should I look into?

I will be getting rid of the red mulch as the last thing that I do after everything is where I want it.

Thanks again!

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Actually it is cotoneaster with only one 't' if we are being pedantic.

Should I be leaning more towards groundcover, flowering perrenials, or evergreen shrubs? I just don't want the bed to look weird in the winter time.

I was going to get pachasandras but they need shade and this bed is in full sun.

"Actually it is cotoneaster with only one 't' if we are being pedantic."

ROTFL at myself. wow, I can't believe my brain shut down and copied her version. LOL

I really wasn't trying to be pedantic though. It's just that it's one of those plant names that so many people read and repeat incorectly simply because they've not heard it said before. Astilbe is another one that gets interesting pronounciations. Sometimes when I hear my clients say these names wrong I can't embarrass them with correction. I just thought Dawn might appreciate knowing how to say it, if not spell it! DUH! LOL

I tend to be as pedantic as anyone. Fine Gardening has cotoneaster with the accent on the second syllable: kah-TONE-ee-ass-ter.

isn't it pretty much the rule that the second syllable be accented in botanical latin?

oh kay nuff of the hijack I guess...I concur with spunky, lose the strange strip of grass at the bottom, widen the bed and then you could have the room for the junipers to grow naturally rather than clipping the sides like that. Then I'll throw this out for thought, how bout more junipers of different var and make a ...juniper mosiac! yeah that's the ticket!

mmmmmmmm juniper juniper juniper... not the 2nd syllable until you switch to ju NIP er us

strange

Okay, fascinating thread. I'm learning a lot.

PROBLEM DEFINITION

* Ubiquitious, unappealing juniper growing in isolated bed
* Limited budget

The things you can do for free (a couple hours on a Saturday morning) are:

* Clean up the lines as Patty suggested.
* Better yet, follow spunky and nicethyme's suggestion: extend the bed down to the sidewalk. Just cut lateral slices through the grass with a sharp knife, shovel it out, and eliminate it. Less mowing, less edgeing, and more continuity.

My own suggestions, for what they are worth, per your solicitation - all low-maintenance:

* Plant some ivy (hedera) near the corner of the brick wall, up on the bed. It will drape down the wall, soften the lines, and lend an air of dignity and veneration to your property.

* Over the years, begin planting various species of boxwood.
If you're not planting a continuous hedge, they are not expensive and can be had 1-2' high for around $10/ea. They will complement

* For comic relief and a hint of color, get a few common thrift plants and space them out in the new strip, where the grass is at present. Alternatively, plant green Mondo Grass along the botton edge. $37 + shipping gets you 72 young plants from comnur.com.

* LEAVE the lion's share of the juniper -- for now. You are on a limited budget and since you've got something there can do this project piecemeal without it looking awful in the interim.

* Lastly and most importantly... For goodness sakes, eliminate that garish red stuff you've got on the ground. Put down peat moss - dark brown, fine texture, lasts at least two years. I would spend the plurality of your budget on that.

My $.02

Hmmm. Ivy is nice, but can spread aggressively and is hard to get rid of. Proceed with caution. You could consider Vinca minor instead, I've never had a problem containing it at the edge of the lawn with the mower, but you'll have to keep it mulched and watered (and weeded) until it's well established (a couple of years or more, depending on how closely you plant it).

Peat moss does not make a good mulch. You can use it mixed in as a soil amendment, but when used on the surface, it tends to crust over and repel water, something you don't want on a sunny bank.

I would agree that the planting should go to the front walk. This is where the groundcover will come in, as it can be hard to keep mulch from falling out onto the walk.

The suggestion to plant additional low growing evergreens with different foliage colors was a good one, and I agree on the red mulch. It doesn't do anything for the planting or the appearance of the house, and if anything, just calls attention to the unfinished state of the bed.

I would stick with mostly groundcover and low shrubs, with a few large clumps of perennials for interest. Something like daylilies would be OK, but please skip the Stella D'Oro in favor of something with a better color.

Plant swaps are a great source of new plants. The one in my area welcomes new gardeners with little or nothing to share (bring some donuts or cookies) and I have come home with some really awesome plants. Yes, they're small divisions, but many perennials increase quickly.

If you put perennials in, don't choose too many different plants, you don't want a cottage garden out there. Two or three clumps of daylilies (stick to one kind for the most impact and don't put the clumps evenly spaced, make the placement irregular), maybe a couple of Montauk Daisies or something for late summer, a few spring bulbs.

Perennials that bloom late in the season tend to look good early on, as opposed to early bloomers that go all ratty when they're done blooming, so keep that in mind when choosing plants and read up or ask at a nursery how the foliage looks after blooming.

Do a search or ask on the perennial forum for lists of plants that look good all season and grow well in your area.

After going back and reading your original post, is see that you want something low and creeping that covers the ground, doesn't catch leaves, and isn't prickly like juniper. If you're not interested in planting a more interesting bed, with additional shrubs, for whatever reason, and you are not into gardening, which planting perennials will require in the form of watering, dividing, deadheading, etc., why not just take it all out and plant grass?

Wow. Lots of questions that I need to answer.
Lets see, where do I start.

The strip of grass you are referring to: wasn't my idea. I bought the house 4 years ago and it came like you see it. I did plant the spruce though. I've been contemplating removing that strip of grass for quite some time, just wasn't sure how awkward it would look. You really think I should do that? Won't mulch on my sidewalk be a problem then? I doubt I can put landscape fabric down since the mulch will just slide off during heavy rain because of the slope. Without it though, weeds will be a problem as they had been. I guess I have to deal with it.

The red mulch is pretty much gone. I got the hint! Stop bashing me already, LOL. Its so odd that you all hate it, but yet when I drive around in my town 90% of people have it. The more I see it, the more gaudy is seems to me now. I got rid of the mulch a few days ago. Took about 20 paper leaf bags, what a pain (and what a waste). I'm thinking about getting pine bark nuggets (instead of wood chips or brown/black mulch). Is this a good idea?

I bought a whole bunch of perennials yesterday for my planned perennial makeover...see my other thread in the perennial forum (link should be below). To start, I purchased 2 daylilly pots, an aster, two catmint plants, three vinca plants, a hosta, two tutti fruttis, and two other species I can't recall the name of (I'm still just learning!).

To start, I plan on moving two dwarf mugo pine shrubs from the bed in the backyard garden (currently located on the lower end of the bed in the back) into the front yard. This shrub requires full sun, something I just realized now.

Because of their height, I plan on planting the daylillies in the backyard bed in front of the leland cypress. I will probably plant the hosta in the front yard.

As my interest in planting shrubs and perennial has been increasing two-fold each week, my budget has slowly been expanding. I told my wife that its my anniversary gift to her. She liked that idea.

My plan is to buy half of my plants locally, and the other half with bargains thru Ebay. I know its hit or miss with Ebay, but I have heard success stories with buying plants that way.

Here's what I'm currently awaiting delivery on:

- Silver Mound Artemesia
- Hosta Patriot
- Veronica Blue
- Mockorange Snowbelle
- Coreopsis Creme Brule
- Dwarf Rose Carpet Indigo
- Sweet Woodruff
- Plumbago Auriculata
- Mini Stellas
- Veronica Crystal River
- Lily of the Valley pips

Any suggestions as to where (front yard/back yard) you think it would be better to plant these perennials, and those mentioned earlier? The front yard is full sun. The back yard is half in full sun (that closest to the grass) and the other half in partial sun/shade.

Two more questions before I finish. When planting perennials do I need to add anything to the soil or is it just dig a whole, plant it, and water it. Also, how does one specifically go about deadheading (now that I know what it is). Like how to do it, when to do it, how often to do it, etc....

Many thanks again to all for your great advice.

Here is a link that might be useful: perrenial makeover thread

To follow up on my previous post, you all got me thinking about removing that strip of grass. I did a little work in photoshop to see what the bed may look like after I removed the grass. See below for before/after shots. Notice I used brown mulch!

Any Thoughts?

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A few short points first: Hosta Patriot will need more shade, Lily of the Valley CREEPS and I keep it in a POT, never releasing it into a garden bed; and finally, no one should ever plant ivy, anywhere.

Regarding the strip of grass, I'm in favour of keeping it for two reasons. First, you are quite right that you will have a sidewalk edging and cleaning problem if you take it away, and second, one side at a time is not the right approach to shaping beds. I don't really like the shape of this bed, but if you want to reshape it then there are ways you can improve it OTHER than removing the strip of grass. The whole thing has to relate to that cute brick wall at the corner, above all, and removing the strip of grass totally destroys the bed's harmony with the wall, to the extent that it has any now!

Regarding plant selection, if this were my bed I'd be aiming for maybe 60% or more conifers, mostly dwarf of course, but would choose some other than those junipers. The mugo pines are a great start - with a few perennials/roses etc interspersed for summer colour. It is easy to get carried away once you start shopping for plants (and it sounds as if you're getting well and truly hooked, welcome to the club!) and I think it is important to stay true to your original set of needs. You wanted low growing plants, you're on a budget, you want it to look nice in winter, and you're concerned about planting in midsummer (rightly). You'd like it not to catch too many leaves in winter. (I'm not sure why you want it all low growing, but there it is).

Sooo, leave the rest of the junipers where they are for now, given that it is midsummer and you can't afford to buy the whole shebang right now. Plant the new plants you have ordered, and if you want to add conifers to the mix, check out your local garden centre or some mail order sources for some Chamaecyparis varieties and other conifers, even some DIFFERENT kinds of juniper (maybe even a narrow columnar type or two). Developing a pleasing design for part of a bed is far easier than designing the whole bed at once, and as long as you have an overall look in mind, you can do it piecemeal.

When you plant, fill the holes with water at least twice and let it drain away, and then keep watering every second day or so until the weather cools. Leave a bit of a moat around each plant so water goes to the roots, not down the hill.

In the fall, or next year in spring, clear out another juniper and go plant shopping - especially conifer shopping - again, and repeat the process till the bed is to your liking.

As the plants grow in, mulch won't be so much of an issue - mind you with leaves falling on it in winter I'm not sure why it is anyway - how do you keep it clean?

For inspiration you could read the conifers forum or look at a book called Gardening with Conifers, by Adrian Bloom.

Karinl,

Thanks so much for your valuable input. I have a few follow-up questions to your responses if you don't mind...

"Lily of the Valley CREEPS and I keep it in a POT, never releasing it into a garden bed"

- I don't understand the creeping issue. First off, I have to understand what you mean by creep. To me it sounds like it strangles other plants.

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"I don't really like the shape of this bed, but if you want to reshape it then there are ways you can improve it OTHER than removing the strip of grass."

- I'm all ears. I don't know how to improve the shape of the bed, considering the elevation issue. The only thing I could do is expand it. If it was on flat ground it would be so much easier. I could expand it, contract, and contour it to my heart's content.

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"The mugo pines are a great start - with a few perennials/roses etc interspersed for summer colour"

- All right! My first good decision, woohoo!

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"It is easy to get carried away once you start shopping for plants "

- You're not kidding...LOL

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"You wanted low growing plants"

- Not necessarily the case anymore. Just figured that it would look the most approriate because of the downhill slope.

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"you're on a budget"

- No longer an issue. My wife is very open idea to the fact that its something we can do together. Having a 2 year old and a 3 month old makes it really hard to go out like we used to. Therefore the money we used to spend going out is just being redirected towards something we can do together at home.

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"You'd like it not to catch too many leaves in winter. (I'm not sure why you want it all low growing, but there it is). "

- Well then its probably a good idea not to have low-growing plants after all.

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"Plant the new plants you have ordered, and if you want to add conifers to the mix"

- Will add this to my game plan. Didn't know what a conifer actually was until I just googled it. Thanks!

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"When you plant, fill the holes with water at least twice and let it drain away, and then keep watering every second day or so until the weather cools. Leave a bit of a moat around each plant so water goes to the roots, not down the hill."

- Now that's a great pointer considering the elevation I have to deal with!

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"As the plants grow in, mulch won't be so much of an issue - mind you with leaves falling on it in winter I'm not sure why it is anyway - how do you keep it clean? "

- I used to blow the leaves out with my backpack blower. They would stick in the prickly branches of the junipers. Crank up the blower to max speed and get them out. For the tough areas I would actually use a rake on the branches to get the leaves out. No longer an issue really now since most of them are gone!

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One final question: I want to plant daylillies today in my backyard. The instructions say to plant them 18" apart. Is it OK to plant them closer together? I have three plants. They just look better closer together than if they were spaced out. In general, should you always following spacing instructions for perennials?

Daylilies planted 18" apart will touch, or nearly so, when they're a little older (the old saw about perennials is "first year they sleep, second year they creep, third year they leap").

Generally what I do is plant annuals in the spaces between baby perennials, because I like lush plantings. The second year, I can usually re-evaluate how many annuals I need to fill the gaps. Third year, the perennials have filled the spot themselves! You could also plant a groundcover perennial, like a creeping type of sedum, which can be easily thinned out as you need to make room for the daylilies.

Glad to hear that you and your wife are discovering the fun of gardening together! I wish my spouse had the same appreciation for plants!

Lily of the Valley spreads until it overruns everything in its path. Cut the bottom off a large nursery pot, bury it to the rim, and plant inside it. Very hard to get rid of LOV once it takes over.

Newly planted perennials always look skimpy the first year. If you give them the space they need to spread their roots out, they'll fill in more quickly than if they're overcrowded.

You can use the daylilies in the front bed, just put them nearer the center or rear of the bed if you want shorter plants in front of them.

"To follow up on my previous post, you all got me thinking about removing that strip of grass. I did a little work in photoshop to see what the bed may look like after I removed the grass. See below for before/after shots. Notice I used brown mulch!"

Major improvement!!!! Great work!

Surprised no one has suggested kinnikinnick as groundcover.

"No longer an issue. My wife is very open idea to the fact that its something we can do together. Having a 2 year old and a 3 month old makes it really hard to go out like we used to. Therefore the money we used to spend going out is just being redirected towards something we can do together at home."

You and me are in the same boat! :-)

Uh-oh...I see a potential gardener in the making! When you open your eyes up to the possibilities it's pretty cool, isn't it? And how nice that you can make it a family interest. I love sharing gardening with my kids, and they are old enough now to want their "own" gardens.

I would recommend getting some basic books to help on your new found interest. Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Perennials is essential to me. Although I have at least 2 dozen gardening books, this is the one I always return to. Also, Gordon Hayward's Your House, Your Garden is the bible for landscaping. Check out your library and/or local book store and see the hundreds of offerings.

Since you are opening up your budget, think of planting "drifts" of plants...I can see drifts of purple coneflower (echinacea)russian sage (perovskia) along with some ornamental grasses (???did I just say that!!!). Add some veronica sunny blue border,and threadleaf coreospis as short to medium plants. And don't forget to get some spring blooming bulbs in this fall for a welcoming blast of color after the snow melts. The emerging perennials will hide the spent foliage of the spring blooming bulbs like tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinth, and so forth.

Patty

Patty, thanks for the book recommendations. I know you meant them for the thread poster, but my wife and I will also check into them.

It's easy to learn how to build a brick path or the preferred pH of boxwood, but rather difficult to find books about landscaping theory and about Colonial vs. French vs. Japanese gardening or appropriate marriage of color and texture - at least at the major home outlets, whose books essentially provide just picture galleries. Almost as tough as trying to find a pure grass seed of a very specific cultivar.

Re. Daylilies, as Saypoints mentions; most daylilies are tall-ish (3 feet), however the very popular Stella D'Ors and Happy Returns are dwarf daylilies and are actually short-ish (1 1/2 feet).

Patty

Well I'm glad the daylily question has been answered as that's not a plant I use much, and when I do I cram it in behind other plants so only the flowers show.

To the Lily of the Valley answer from Saypoint I'll add a little context: All perennial plants will increase over time - your daylilies and hostas, for instance, will have maybe 3 sprouts one year, then 6 or 8 the next, and then more. Those plants, and many other perennials, increase in a clumping manner; that is, the new sprouts come out of the base of the plant. Those can be planted in one place and they will stay there. Other plants, like Lily of the Valley, increase in a spreading manner by sending new shoots up from the roots, or by sending out long runners from the base of the plant. Those plants will not just grow over a wide area but also literally travel to where their preferred conditions are. If you plant LOV at the top of your slope, for example, I'd bet that within 5 years you would have a little forest of LOV along the bottom of the slope, as it will follow the water and probably nutrients downhill. Sweet woodruff is another wanderer, by the way.

As for reshaping the bed... I'm not sure that I can see an obvious solution; it would take some thought, and more landscaping expertise than mine (I'm a plant fiend first). There's nothing wrong with working with the bed the way it now is, and seeing what strikes you as a better idea once you've spent some time working on your garden and investigating the world of plants. Above all, the ultimate AMOUNT of bed will depend on how much gardening you want to do, and what kind of plants you like. And if you live in an area where 90% of homes have red mulch, I'm guessing you're going to have to look to the world of books and magazines for inspiration and ideas, and when you do I'm sure that different options will occur to you. Or maybe someone else here has an idea...

This thread: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/conif/msg0501045731301.html
and the one linked below are some with photos from the Conifers forum. Sorry I didn't have time to look for those yesterday. These people (including me) are a little obsessed and I'm not recommending that, but these threads show some of the awesome variety of material to choose from in the conifer world. (Don't forget to look at mature/10-year size before you buy)

You had another question not yet answered... and perhaps better answered elsewhere but what the heck - deadheading: some people do it once a season, some once a day. Just look at the plant structure and try to avoid cutting off emerging buds as well. You probably would enjoy a good general gardening book to answer questions like that.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pictures of conifers

Well, I spend a good portion of my weekend working on various landscaping projects. I had a chance to transplant some conifers from the back yard to the front yard bed. I think the bed is more more improved now. Its a start. See photos below (taken at 8am so the sun is still low). I still have to add mulch and plan to add additional perennials. Notice that I left 4 of the original juniper plants: the cluster of three near the left and the one on the extreme right. The mugo pines and blue star junipers came from a bed in the back yard. I hope that transplanting them now won't kill them. I planted vincas as a ground cover around the spruce.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

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Wanted to post at least some follow-up. Must say I'm impressed!

Everything should grow over time and fill in the bare areas. Be sure you know the final size of the plants and growth rates (along with their soil requirements), so you don't accidently crowd them by adding other things too close.

Welcome to the wonderful world of gardening!

Question about the vincas: Will they crawl up the spruce or do they stay low to the ground?

It is certainly a big improvement over what you started with, and still leaves you room for more experimentation. A good start, I'd say, and indeed I hope the shrubs survive being transplanted. You should probably water every second day, to the roots, and if you can provide a little shade for relentlessly hot days (might look a little funny out in the front yard, but better than dead plants) that would probably help too. Actually, a few rocks next to the plants can accomplish that quite decoratively and rocks, bricks, or the like will help the soil retain water.

Vinca spreads mostly via long stems that often root where they touch the ground (I don't think it has underground runners), and since it has long stems it can go pretty far. In my experience it doesn't climb, however, but it does mound quite high, piling on top of itself, if it is never trimmed. I'd plan to trim it back quite hard once a year, I think after blooming, but probably best to look that up.

I would just say one other thing about plant placement, which is to suggest a good word I've learned from SayPoint: "grouping". I'm having to redo all my beds on this basis! When you plant up a flower bed, it is best to think of plant groupings as you work your way along it rather than plant rows. It doesn't have to be groups of the same plants (that's called "drifts!"), just groups that look good together, within the context of the overall flow of the bed. Maybe once you've acquired a few more of your plants you might like to reposition the pines at least so they do not look quite so... precision-installed, perhaps placed more asymmetrically in the bed, each in company with a couple of congenial or complementary plants.

But otherwise, a big improvement. Congratulations!