When you start getting letters.

When the plants start crawling in through your windows.

To be honest, the landscaping that seems to go with new houses these days (if they are landscaped) are often a rather sparse and boring set of topiaried evergreens (IMO)

Unless you're looking to flip the house (unlikely in this market), I say plant what you like and deal with it when you go to sell. Styles will change so many times before then anyway.

Can you see the road from inside the house? If so, keep planting. The planet needs trees.

tj

Apparently it is when you starting installing identification labels on stakes and your neighbors starting wondering "what is THAT all about?".

I am now known as the person with "labels in the yard".

You know you're taking it too far when you post on a forum asking if you're taking this too far. :)

First, is your landscaping impeding the functional use of the yard? Is the yard miserably difficult to mow, can the kids or dogs play in the backyard without imperiling anything, etc...?

Second, aesthetics. Not something I'm a good judge of and I'm dealing with a similar issue to you know. Basically planning to plant a variety of shrubs in a row around a backyard fence that's liable to end up looking like 'Franken-Yard,' and our tree selection is also somewhat 'eclectic.'

Richard.

when you start planting the neighbors abutting land.. with permission, of course ...

then the circle in the middle of the cul de sac ...

then volunteering to plant various spaces in the community ...

lol

ken

Or getting a threatening e-mail from HOA that they would have me arrested if I tried to take care of trees at the park when they won't do a thing to care for them properly... Apparently, hiring TruGreen to take care of the trees is their idea of "proper" way of maintaining their health....

To me there is a maintenance issue. Something like there are only so many flower beds I can properly pull the weeds out of or so many seedlings I'm willing to water often enough.

The way I see it, most prospective home buyers will be comfortable with the standard landscaping formula of a couple well-appointed trees, some foundation plantings, a sea of grass, and perhaps a small mulched bed or 2. (What a snooze.) They will see too many gardens and too much landscaping as a maintenance headache.

I KNOW I am over-doing it - but can't stop myself. :) Anyway, the plan is to give away and sell off anything that can be dug up before moving, and hopefully take some of the plants with me.

I moved an over planted yard for a client once that took four truckloads of plants that went to the new home. Layed sideways, packed in like cordwood. I moved around what I could that was left, pruned a lot of the remaining trees and shrubs, and cut down a few trees. I also gave it a new lawn and shape.
Several neighbors told me the yard never looked so good. My customer was very happy.
I wouldn't worry too much about 'taking it too far'.
BoTann

I am definitely approaching this from a different perspective than the original poster, because I have no intention of EVER selling my house or moving. My hope is that I die some day in my bed, and they haul my rotting corpse out a few months later when someone finally realizes no one is getting the mail or mowing the lawn. Having no children, spouse, or close relatives, that may be my fate.

Personally, I've really increased what I've planted in the last few years, at the expense of lawn, and I love it. The key, IMO, is to NOT do so much you can't take care of it. I live in an affluent, hoighty-toighty suburb, but fortunately, I live on the remnants of the old family lands, so we predate any homeowners associations, etc., and I can do what I please.

I jokingly refer to my yard as "Hortihe**" because no one in their right mind would want such a complex mess. But, people do seem to rave about it, I'm always getting compliments, and it is truly a labor of love.

Of course, if I get old and sick and can no longer take care of it, that would be an issue, but I'll cross that bridge when and if I come to it.

I try not to overdue it in terms of overcrowding so much that the plants don't do well, but it has been survival of the fittest for some of them, I must admit. And, I'm a bit of a "collector" -- why have 2 or 3 cultivars of plant X when you can have 25 or 3?

So, am I nuts? Definitely, but that's nothing new. :=)

"I am now known as the person with "labels in the yard""

And I bet the local kids dare each other to swap the labels around ;-)

Resin

My neighbors have informed me that if I keep planting at the pace that I've been going, that I will never be able to move. I know I'll never recover the financial investment, but then, that's not why I'm gardening. So I say, please yourself and the rest will sort itself out.

Interesting viewpoints...some fun, some serious.

Personally I don't have any plans to move anytime soon but you never know what could happen. I too planted to the point where I know I won't recoup my investment. Although down the road my landscape will be very valuable compared to my neighbors lame attempts to plant a couple trees and shrubs.

I think if you design it RIGHT I don't think there is anyway to overdo it...unless you have many high maintenance plants.

I do see people who over do it, not because of the number of plants but because they have an incoherent design...absolultely no flow.

There are a couple houses down the road (all of which are retired women, could be coincidence) that just planted the heck out of all these random perrenials all along their driveway...although it has color you just don't know what to look at...its just a mess.

And I bet the local kids dare each other to swap the labels around ;-)

Well, some are missing anyway. And the deer have stepped on a few!

Dumb question...what is the point of labeling plants in your own yard?

Is it that you have so many cultivars of the same plant and its tought to tell the difference?

Oh plenty of them that post messages frequently here do. Some have so many plants, they have to put up labels to remember which is which exactly. When you have a land that is big enough to plant hundreds of plants, you'd do it.

Well.........when the arborist is in your yearly budget. When you stop labeling trees. When you head to the yearly arboretum tree sale, and your spouse won't let you take the truck. But, did you know you can get thirteen potted trees in a Jeep Cherokee? When you get back to find him sitting in the hammock with a spade and the water tank on the tractor waiting to install? When you graduate to the third coffee can of tree and shrub tags from your acquisitions you thought you should save. When your tractor costs more than your car. Heck, more than both cars? When your gardens look so nice you felt the need to put in a pond, and it looked nekkid without a gazebo behind it? And then you needed a shed for the tractor? When you bought adjoining property to expand your planting zones? When people stop at your place to tell you that you are much younger than they expected? When your needs for gardening and tree tools exceed what the local hardware store carries? When you come home from a vacation early because the weeding might get ahead of you? When you realise you have more pink buckeye trees in gallon pots in your shade house than the inventory of a garden center? When a maple tree turns into a contest to acquire every species of maple on the planet? Sort of like a Noah's ark or germ plasm bank. When you take up grafting because you can get your specimens in bulk? When you suddenly realise that the circle of people you associate with are all gardeners? When you name all your beds so your spouse will know which one you are talking about? Then start installing benches in them. LOL. Who's got it bad?

I labeled the plants in 2008 because the yard was on a local garden tour. I didn't label them all, certainly not any repeat plants, and used about 250 labels.

The labels themselves have weathered well, but as I said, the metal markers have suffered in some cases because of deer stepping on them. The one closest to the street, my Cotinus obovatus, disappeared altogether.

Here is a link that might be useful: The ones I used

Wow Calliope, you have it bad.

Whaas, sure you can overdo it. Check out this thread So you need to sell your garden ? (and, oh yeah, the house too). The number of gardens that get massacred by new owners far exceeds the number that are lovingly maintained. The original poster in this thread had installed elaborate stone walls and rare plantings, only to have some of them ripped up and replaced with a basketball court for the new owners' sons.

Reading this thread was a turning point for me. I am 99% certain I will be moving in a few short years, when my son finishes HS. My plan is to dismantle most of the gardens when I move, rather than have the new owner come and bulldoze them. And I still can't stop planting. :)

if you are simply landscaping for aesthetic ... no labels are necessary ...

if you are COLLECTING .... say 1500 hosta.. you need labels ...

as i like to say.. a $100 without a name.. is a $5 hosta ...

there is NOTHING worse to a collector ... than buying something he already has ... been there .. done that ...

sooner or later.. your landscape will grow.. to the point that you start forgetting.. and then.. well you will wonder why you hadnt started keeping track long ago ...

today.. with puter.. and digital cameras.. you can do it on your hard drive ...

my tags, non-hosta... have latin name.. date of purchase.. and seller ... comes in real handy when someone wants to know where i got it .... how fast it grows ... etc ...

ken

Sure you can over-do. When the garden becomes overplanted, gets too large/overgrown, requires too much maintenance or you have to edit carefully to consider anything new, then you might have gone a bit far :-) It's kind of a cost versus value evaluation - you may not recover the costs associated with your landscape when you move (hardscape retains/adds more value than does softscape/plants) but what have you received from it in terms of satisfaction and enjoyment during your ownership? For serious gardeners, one does tend to outweigh the other.

I'd also not focus too closely on who might be owning your property after you leave and the state of the garden going forward from that point. Everyone will want to put a personal perspective on their property and that may very well involve removing or replacing a large portion of your landscape. If it's high maintenance, most folks will lower that by removing portions or replacing with lower mainentance plantings. Once you've moved, it's best just to keep the memories and ignore the fact, as it will seldom be what you expect or hope for.

I recently moved from a very dense, complicated garden of almost 25 years - with only a couple of exceptions, I planted everything in that garden. The new owners intended the property as rental income and had full intentions of simplifying the garden drastically. I sold or gave away many plants, saved a few to relocate with me and promptly forgot about the garden that used to be, except in photos or my memories. btw, the current garden looks OK although not well-tended......but about 75% of it is missing or has been relocated.

And yes, I had many plants labeled. My garden was on tours, so it helped in that regard but I also had some 1200 different species and cultivars in my garden and as good as my memory for plants is, that's still a lot to try and remember without help, especially when it comes to cultivar names. Usually, it was the smaller plants - bulbs, herbaceous perennials, etc. - that got tagged. Too easy to overlook or forget and good to mark their placement in winter when nothing shows above ground.

The owner of a small arboretum once told me "plus tu plantes, moins il y a d'entretien. C'est d'empêcher de pousser qui prend du temps". Wich could be translated as "the more you plant, the less maintenance there is. What takes time is to restrain plants from growing."

I gradually brought the lawn surface of my garden from 80 to 60, 40... and finally 0%. No more mowing (eventually weeding, treating, etc.), wich took time. I also got rid of a couple of shrubs that 'needed' to be trimmed on a regular basis, like boxwoods (Buxus), a hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) hedge meaning nothing except the eventual thrill of shearing it twice a year.

The thing is, I hate pruning. Well, pruning for pruning. I find nothing more meaningless and boring. I like plants to grow and teach me something.

I planted some trees, shrubs and rather care free perrenials. Some mistakes, I have done, and will probably do again, but I'm trying to learn - how to shape, how to prune now for not having to prune later.

Except the help of a professional gardener - who became a friend - a couple of hours every now and then for things I can't do alone, I maintain the garden on my own and find it easy. No treatments, no fertilizing (only mulch, mainly leaves I collect in a parc nearby every fall), very little weeding (thanks to the mulch) just hand watering for non established plants needing it. My garden is 1200 m2 for a total surface of 1500 m2 (sorry, I don't how to translate this into yards).

As for the future, I'll probably die here too (this garden is my life). I just hope the following owners will not take down some of the nice and sometimes rare trees I planted.

Olivier.

Olivier, your garden sounds like a nice place. Have you posted pictures of your garden somewhere in Gardenweb? I'd like to see them!

Sorry I didn't see your post sooner. Yes I posted a few pictures here and there over the years but I don't have a photo album, just a place to store pictures.

Here's a photo taken last spring, it's a part of what I call the south garden which gives an idea of the whole garden (basically, paths between plants - 12 years ago, there was nothing but grass there) :

{{gwi:326863}}.

Looking forward to next spring, this winter is so long...

Olivier.

Calliope, I'm still laughing at your post and several others. It's sounds a little familiar. I don't have a tractor yet, but my midlife crisis purchase was a 3/4 ton pick up to haul gardening stuff and it is well used.
I think if your yard becomes a chore and you start enjoying it less, then you've gone too far. Otherwise, plant away! Life's too short to not have what you love.
Barb

From a professional point of view once your landscape equals what is typical in the neighborhood you get diminishing returns on anything else you plant. From a plant nuts point of view I started thinking I was over doing it when I started to have to have two different plants for no other reason than they were different cultivars even though they look almost identical.

One other note, I have seen very few serious gardeners or plant collectors who's yards didn't look somewhat over planted compared the the typical yard in the neighborhood. The goal for me is for my neighbors to view my over planted 1/2 acre yard as an attractive collection of plant with different colors and textures, not an over grown mess.

David

"From a professional point of view once your landscape equals what is typical in the neighborhood you get diminishing returns on anything else you plant.":

I don't know, unless the bar is set high for the neigborhood I would have to disagree.

Majority of the homes in my neighborhood are extremely boring with limited plantings. Any home that plants above what is typical in the neighborhood would likely increase their home value (done right).

Waas,

What I am saying is that if you are at the point that is typical of the neighborhood and you add 20K in additional landscaping you are not likley to get 20K more back if you sell the house. Most buyer see more value in finished basements, screened porches, 3 season rooms, an additional garage and so on. All is relative based on the neighborhood, house values and part of country and is a generalization.

David

Yardeners see anything more than nearly empty as over-planted or over-grown. Look at the sketches used for real estate ads etc., the house is often accompanied by little more than a few small puffs of greenery - like sprigs of parsley on a dinner plate - with most of the planting drawn in consisting of lawn.

When a friend - a professional gardener - began moving into his current place some of the condo people over the fence started complaining about all the activity out in the yard. The weren't used to seeing someone moving around outside.

An arboretum here actually published a page once in their quarterly bulletin telling people not to plant up their yards too much, as they would then have trouble selling the property. The author of this piece has since gone on to become a garden columnist and author of books on gardening and landscaping.

Each has to decide for themselves whether selling out more easily later or gardening it up while they are on the place is the higher priority.

picea, I agree if you look at it against other elements of the house (I was thinking apples to apples)...its all about what one might value. One guy won't give two hoots about the nicely lanscaped yard and will love the finished basement. The next guy won't give two hoots about the finished basement but will love the landscaiping.

"Yardeners see anything more than nearly empty as over-planted or over-grown. Look at the sketches used for real estate ads etc., the house is often accompanied by little more than a few small puffs of greenery - like sprigs of parsley on a dinner plate - with most of the planting drawn in consisting of lawn."

...yeah but those houses are huge...who cares about whats planted!

Yardners need to die!...blank slates of land make my eyes bleed.

Lol I'd never heard the term "yardener" before. That's funny. As I'm Designing my 5 ( ok maybe 10) year plan for our blank slate backyard I have to keep restraining myself to remember that my young son really DOES deserve a lawn for inviting his friends over and playing ball. My plans seem to keep decreasing the lawn space to a 5'x5 patch. I even keep trying to think of grass alternatives..... Ajuga! No.... Bees on the flowers in the spring would mean too many stings......moss! No, can't tale the foot traffic....sigh. Gotta restrict myself. Maybe I'll garden vertically arond the edges....

From a professional point of view once your landscape equals what is typical in the neighborhood you get diminishing returns on anything else you plant.

I suspect it all boils down to why you are planting. I've been in the nursery and hort business for nearly 25 years now. My daughter followed in my footsteps for some time doing design and installations. We can quickly size up what customers are installing for $ value on a property, and which are installing for their own enjoyment. Guess which ones we enjoy working with most? My take is it's YOUR HOME first, and an investment second. I have the same attitude about decorating my home, and choosing my appliances. God, I'd hate to feel like I lived for X number of years planning my leisure environment around what somebody else might dish out the most bucks for. ;-)

As I said, even though we do a lot of our own pruning, and tree care, we do have a long-standing relationship with several local arborists. I knew I wasn't the only one with a tree fetish, when one of them showed up to do some limbing, crawled out of his truck, and said it looked like an arboretum. LOL. Also said that if he had more land, it would be his dream to create a place like this.

It's maturing now. Been working on it a quarter of a century. It's getting lush and almost decadent and blowsy.
Like Olivier says "The owner of a small arboretum once told me "plus tu plantes, moins il y a d'entretien. C'est d'empêcher de pousser qui prend du temps". Wich could be translated as "the more you plant, the less maintenance there is. What takes time is to restrain plants from growing."

We work very hard at making it look like it just happened and restraining the wild abandon going on. LOL. At least I had enough training to not make the common new gardener mistakes about tree size. We've never had to dig up or transplant a tree since we began installing and I know I have put in close to 200 of them. I can almost hear the earth, once stripped for pasture saying "Thank you!"

I recently had a neighbor approach me as I was fixing some rotted siding on my garage. This is the neighbor whose lawn is saturated with creeping charlie. He asked, hey with all the money you are putting into this house, are you planning on staying here awhile? First, the repairs we were making weren't for cosmetic purposes, they were more functional. I'd assumed, "all the money" meant all the landscaping we've done ourselves. I love my yard, and I regret not getting started on it sooner when we purchased our home in 2004, we waited a few years and focused on the interior, with no relaxing, private, soothing patio to relax on. But, oh, today, we can enjoy sitting on our patio on our very small lot, with privacy from our neighbors. It's nice, and would I love to purchase a home with the landscaping already done? You bet, but I don't regret that I had to do it myself, because now I'm hooked and I love what I've learned - gardening and landscaping is very therapeutic to me.

I've also wondered how much is too much, but I've been told by neighbors that I'm their inspiration, and we have people stopping at the front of our house to view our property from time to time, so we are heading in the right direction, especially as plants begin to mature. I have a small back yard, and yet in my rear yard I have a poplar tree (soon to be replaced), a mature lilac shrub, a hedge of privets, 2 smokebush trees/shrubs, a green giant thuja, an emerald green thuja, 5 purple leaf sand cherries, a serviceberry, a red japanese maple, a heptacodium, and a katsura willow tree, among various perennials, vines, and evergreen and deciduous shrubs. I'm thinking of adding a degroots spire and replacing the poplar with a dogwood or magnolia. The placement for each works, and creates a nice lush private space for us. I have run out of planting space, but I don't intend to lose more lawn, so now it's just waiting for everything to reach maturity and a matter of enjoying what we created.

As long as you are comfortable in your own space, that's all that matters.

There are a couple homes that we see on our walks in the neighborhood, with the front lawn completely over done in an awkward cottage style. There's nothing wrong with the style, but I think when homes like that are wedged between other homes with more open or formal landscaping, it looks odd and out of place. I feel sorry for the immediate neighbors. In my opinion when all you see is the landscaping from the curb and not the house, that's when you've gone overboard.

I dread the day we sell our home and someone who doesn't appreciate what we've done lives here. We joke about it sometimes. But, I've recently heard from some new owners in the neighborhood that others talk about the work we've done on the house with the "striped awnings", so it's nice to hear when you've invested so much sweat into improving it and making it your own. I don't care if anyone thinks we've put too much money into our house. We didn't buy to flip it, and I don't ask everyone else how they spend their money.

Ken, somehow, I can picture you doing that...along with a bottle of Scotch. LOL. I have thought of volunteering to manage the city's planting space.