How about a beautiful Honeysuckle on that pretty white fence I see in the back? You might attract a few Hummingbirds too! It would get you started.

You cant see it here, but i have a little tiny hyacinth bean vine back there, hopefully it takes off now that the heat is on.

I am hoping to try and find a way to trail things as far up the side of the house as i can, maybe vertical sections of wire trellis? I want to kind of disguise that grey wall or make it look a little less um, well, wall-like, lol.

I'm not sure where your property line is - but how about a pergola back there near the white fence - and growing some climbing flowering vines or roses for privacy.You might be able to put a small table and two chairs under it. You can lay down pavers under the table and chairs and leave some of the grass between the pavers. Then put a small walkway to the pergola from the driveway. A flower bed can be put between the house and the walkway and along the path.

What about a fountain, and or a bench, with a inviting path back to it....calling to come explore or relax in your new cottage garden..the "path" could be left grass to please your hubby and to draw the eye to it....it could also narrow and widden in places where you wanted people to stop as they walk, or even just let eye wander..keep the path soft and NOT direct...even tho you don't have tons of space to curve it, you can a bit I think...think also of a small size ornamental tree, even a dwarf variety in the back near a bench or a fountain..that way there is shade to get out of the hot sun where you want guests or yourself to stop....and it will allow you to both shade garden a bit and sun garden too...best of both worlds and a place to escape the heat or watch children play....wait..do children still play outside or are they all inside with computers and video play?

The property line is basically a straight line from the middle of the electrical box to the corner post on the fence section, it is 6 feet wide at the back, and the faucet is located there as well (we are lucky, and have one on the other side of the house as well)

I NEED to take out all the grass, because whatever kind i have is just too tough to keep under control. It will be much easier to put heavy duty edging between my garden and my neighbors yard and remove all the grass from my cottage area

Play outside! There are only 10 houses on my street (my street is only one block long!) and we have 10 children under the age of 7! they are outside all day long, it is great! However it means no foxglove or extremely toxic plants, I am not taking that chance.

I am glad you have children playing outside....not here.....they play INSIDE on electrical toys! I am glad to hear there is still wholesome good ole playing outside! Good luck with your garden...post us some pics as your progress.

I think you've got a great blank slate to work with! You could start by making a bed running along the garage/house there. I would suggest something at least three feet deep with a curved edge. I like the idea of trellis sections for vines and climbers.

And lavndrfern's suggestion of a pergola with a table and chairs under it is excellent. If you don't have room for the pergola, you could always do a nice little patio area with some reclaimed bricks. I think trailrunner has some excellent photos for inspiration! Then I would put lots of flowers around the sitting area. And a fountain for relaxation. Some birdfeeders for our feathered friends, too.

I'm not sure what the rules are for planting near an electrical box, but if you can plant near it, I would probably put something you won't miss if it gets disturbed. A while ago we had some ideas going around about using trellis panels around things like that to hide it and allow vines and plants to climb on it but still have access to the box (if that makes sense).

Good luck and I hope that helps.
Tracy

Btw, before you get started, check out your zoning and subdivision rules - they might have restrictions on what you can do that close to your property line, especially things like pergolas. They generally don't care about plants, fortunately.

Oh, and we get a combo of kids playing inside and outside here...

Irene - Thanks, We checked and as long as the structure is not "solid" we can go up to 10 feet, so latice or pergola should be fine.

Tracy - Since the electrical box area is the hottest and dryest part of the yard, I am putting what i call a "dry bed" there. it is a mound of sandy mix soil that drains away well, i am going to have russian sage, lavender, and pentstemmons so far. We can plant anything we like next to it, but permanent structures have to be 3 feet from the sides and back, and 10 feet from the front...anything closer has to be temporary or Semi-permanent.

We would like to put in three sections of scalloped picket fence along the front and one section heading up the side of the driveway, but we will probably put them about 2 feet in from the sidewalk to allow for snow in the winter.

Since the shape is so funky, what do you all think about utilizing the H*ll strip next to the road for extra planting space?

Now THAT's a blank canvas! almost a little daunting.

Your "space" is with the house on the right side of the photos, correct? and what direction does the house face? -- I'm wondering what amounts of sun you expect to get in the area during the course of the day.

If mine, I'd start with a bed along the garage wall, and I'd definitely go vertical! climbing roses, honeysuckle, morning glories, etc., whatever you prefer along those lines.

As far as creating a "private patio area" in the front yard, I think you'll need a fence, trellis, and/or fence section to define and "hide" it. I'd plan the seating area to be close to the garage door -- unless you want to be walking further toward the back yard while carrying dishes, glasses, and things. :) So I'd try to set the defining 'fence-line' somewhere between the electrical box and the house front. Best of both worlds. :)

Re planting the h*ll strip: if you mean the area between the sidewalk and the street, most municipalities won't allow that -- so check to make sure that you can. The other worry about doing that is if they use salt on that road in snowy weather... if so, go with daylilies, which are supposed to be more salt-tolerant.

Hope that helps!

Party Music50 - yup just a teensy bit daunting, lol!

The front of the house faces north by northeast, so the front of the bed will have full sun, and the very back of the garden will get at most a couple hours of sun, and none in the afternoon.

BTW - since i posted this originally, the other house has been painted. Badly
It is now the same shade as the crayola that we used as skin color when we were kids, with red shutters, and they put in a foundation bed along the side you see with a border made of orangey blocks with BLINDIGLY WHITE GRAVEL in them!! ARGH - now a lattice fence is not an option, it is a necessity!

As to the H*ll Strip, yup it is the section between the sidewalk and the street. I am 90 percent sure we are allowed to plant so long as they are not taller than ?3 feet?. I need to look into that a little more....

BWAHAHAHAHA! The other house is "...now the same shade as the crayola that we used as skin color when we were kids, with red shutters..." -- I just love your description and think that I can picture it correctly. :)

My honeysuckle vine would grow and flower nicely with that eastern exposure. It doesn't demand a lot of sun. And morning glories should love it!

If you want some suggestions for z5 hardy perennials in the shadier back area, I can tell you what's worked well for me.

Once you get started, you'll probably feel instant gratification. I like to wait until I get a "picture in my head" and start there. If it doesn't work as I imagined it, I change it later -- usually by moving certain plants in or out.

party_music50 - it would be freakin hilarious if it werent right next to my little cottage garden, again I say "Argh"
I will try to take a new picture today and get it posted for those who were not quite a struck by my powers of description :D)

"some suggestions for z5 hardy perennials in the shadier back area," would be great! Give! Now!

oh yeah...Please!

rnbwgrl: I just found and read your "introduction" post and see that you have heavy clay soil. It sounds like you have a lot of moisture too. Both conditions are opposite what I face, so perhaps you will have success with a few things I haven't (like Ligularia!), and not such good such good success with these -- for your shadier areas:

Centaura montana (perennial Bachelor's Buttons) - great blue spring flower, fragrant, nice silvery-green foliage if maintained properly.

Trollius - early summer bloomer in orange or yellow.

Valerian officinalis (aka perennial heliotrope) - love the fragrance of the delicate white flower-clusters, and has a great fernlike foliage.

The list could take forever like that, so:
Hardy primrose, bleeding hearts (all Dicentras, including dutchman's breeches), astilbes, jacob's ladder, brunneras, heucheras/heucherellas, hostas, solomon's seal, lamiums/lamiastrums, pulmonarias (lungwarts), rodgersia, forget-me-nots (biennial, but self-sows for me), lily of the valley, jack-in-the-pulpit, ferns (especially Japanese ferns), aegopodium (variegated bishop's weed is beautiful, but must be contained!), ... herbs like chives, sweet cicely, parsley, mints, ...

Evem with just a couple of hours of sun, I've had very good success with sweet william (biennial, but acts like self-sowing perennial for me), campanulas, lupins, rhododendrons, bearded and siberian iris, monarda, coreopsis, shasta daisies, honeysuckle vine, lambs ear, verbascum (biennial, but self-sows for me), iberis (candytuft), many asiatic lilies, ... bulbs like grape hyacinths, crocus, daffodils, ...

Not a hardy perennial for us, but I also like miribalis (4 o'clocks) in light shade -- I just dig and store the tubers over winter.

The lists can go on -- I'm sure I haven't thought of some things I have growing that I really like (it's 3am. lol!), but hopefully this will help. :)

WOW, thanks party music! That is a great list!

I got a great picture of the neighbors new . . . look, I will try to post it this evening.

I have a couple of little purple hyacinth bean vines that are finally starting to take off, so if i like them, i dont mind replanting them every year from seed.

Here you go Party Music

and the picture doesnt do justice to the true color of the house or the true blinding brightness of the gravel....

just out of the picture is a shade loving hosta, to go with the annual cladium pictured and the strange mix of sun and shade items.

rnbwgrl, I'm sorry but I'm laughing hysterically at your picture and description. You have made me so happy all over again that I don't have to live in a city anymore. Ack! I don't think I could take having really "close" neighbors anymore! Unless, of course, they were all knowledgeable gardeners or willing learners at the least. LOL!

MeMo

MeMo,

we think it is pretty funny too, they put this all the way around their house and a tiny collar of it around their tree, and see the trashcan at the end? that is where is sits, directly blocking any view of their...erm...umm..lovely? handiwork.

Trellis fence, definitely a trellis fence....

MeMo, I am in Des Moines, but I went to high school in oakland Iowa, near council bluffs, what part of the platte, i mean FLAT state are you from?

awwww.... those poor little lilies and things... I've never been a fan of rock mulch. :( It seems to be successfully marketed to beginning gardeners because they're told that it's an effective mulch that doesn't need to be replenished -- just what a non-gardener wants to hear: "maintenance free". I'm betting there's also a heavy black plastic liner underneath the rock with tiny slits cut where the plants were plugged in. :(

I see a little tricycle there, so I'm guessing it's the home of a young couple. Don't worry... just do your own gardening thing. Chances are, they'll either hate looking at your gardening style and put up a tall fence to hide the view to your gardens -- or they'll be swayed/influenced by what they see you doing and they'll soften things up a bit. :)

My daughter's fiance bought a house with white rock mulch. After several years of fall leaves and debri being deposited on it it wasn't looking so clean and pristine lol. This spring, when I visited, my daughter begged me to help them plan a nicer looking garden. I did so but could not convince them to remove the big square of landscape timbers that surrounds a tree they planted last year. At least the big square was already there and the tree was planted at the correct depth. They removed all the rocks and replaced them with mulch so it's an improvement. I made several plant suggestions but I haven't been back since to see how it all turned out.

I wonder if your neighbors have considered all the gunk that will be deposited in their nice white bed since the downspout is set up to dump directly into it? Yuck.

I think a tall trellis fence to divide the properties would be very fitting. If you could then continue down the property line with a white picket fence and continue across the front with it, you would have a really nice backdrop for a cottage style garden. You could then just take out grass along the fence as you needed to until ultimately the space is all filled in with flowers. Should be very pretty.

rnbwgrl, I live in Keya Paha county in the north central part of the "Flat" state lol. That's funny, I've never heard it called that before. I will say that having driven I-80 across Iowa many times, that state isn't exactly full of movement. LOL. Our ranch is right on the Keya Paha river and north of the Niobrara river. It's actually big rolling hills here and the hills on each side of the rivers are pine and E. red cedar covered so very woodsey terrain over all. About 75 miles west of here...it's flat again. They call this area outlaw alley because so many of the old gunslingers and outlaws hung out in these hills back in the day. I was born here and then moved to Omaha when I was little where I grew up and spent 27 years of marriage. At the end of my marriage, I came home. Best decision I ever made. I did live in C.B. for a couple years during my marriage. Sort of a misfit of a town IMO. My ex had family in Des Moines so I have been there a few times but it's been many years now since I've visited.

MeMo

Memo,

that is exactly what i was planning! with the grey of our house and the black shutters, the white fence will look great! i am going to do some scalloped sections on the front, and then some tall trellis in the back half, slowly stepping down till it is the same height as the fence at the front.

My dad drives truck, so he started calling it the flat state when he drove the western portion. I went to highschool in the middle of the Loess hills, so anything flatter than the roller coaster hills there is, well, flat. lol.

My folks live in CB now, and I agree it is a bit of an odd duck. kind of an omaha suburb, strangely laid out, odd in general. They live in the Lake Manawa area in a little older neighborhood, so not quite as odd as the rest of the town.

Technically I live in Urbandale (much lower prop taxes than des moines ;)