Hi Appledeco,

I read your post early this morning but have put off responding while trying to think of how to phrase my answer. Anyway, here goes.....

First of all, I am not a landscaper or a landscape designer, so feel free to ignore every word I say.

Secondly, when you are landscaping a home, you should base your plant selection on at least two factors: 1) what plants will grow well in each planting location, in terms of the type of soil available, light exposure, the ultimate mature size of the plant, etc., and 2) the style of the home and what kind of plants will complement and enhance that style. But, you aren't doing that here. Instead, you are digging up plants from a different home and attempting to use them at the new house whether they are suitable for the location and whether or not they will enhance the style of your new home. (sigh) I swear, I am not saying this to be mean....just realistic. To me, what you're doing here is comparable to taking the pieces from one jigsaw puzzle and attempting to force them to fit into another jigsaw puzzle. I just don't see it working out very well and I'll explain why.

Zebra Grass---these can get really big and they do best in full sun. They really aren't going to get full sun with a northeastern exposure so having less than ideal light might help keep them a bit smaller, but they still will be too large for the bed that currently has boxwood and they'd be way too big to plant in front of the rock wall. Unless you have an extremely dwarf form of zebra grass, they'll just bury that rock wall and hide the front door.

Yucca--The will get too large for the current boxwood bed and also a bit too prickley to have close to a walkway or entrance. Yuccas are beautiful, but they don't belong along a walkway unless you have a really deep bed and can plant them far enough away from the bed that they won't reach out and 'grab' people as they walk by.

Elijah Blue fescue is pretty compact and wouldn't mind the northeastern exposure. If I was going to put anything in the bed where the boxwood is now, I'd put the fescue there with a tall part-shade perennial or wall-hugging vine behind the fescue to break up that expanse of wall.

'Walker's Low' catmints are gorgeous plants, but they need room to grow and sprawl. If you wanted to plant them in front of the little stone wall, they might do well there if they get enough sunlight to bloom. I tend to put my catmints in out of the way places, though, and not out front and center because my cats like to lay down on top of the catmint plants, roll on them and crush them. Even if you don't have cats, undoubtedly some of your neighbors do, so you might want to put the catmint plant in the backyard or sideyard where it won't bother you as much if the local cats keep rolling on them and crushing them. I have one old tom cat who thinks it is his duty to roll on my catmint twice a day and smash and crush it to smithereens, although the other cats don't bother it much, so maybe some cats don't like catmint.

As far as the window, it is better to use mini-blinds, plantation shutters, draperies, window shades or other internal window treatments for privacy. If you plant something very thick and dense in front of that window it will ruin your view from inside the house and it will give burglars a shrub or tree to hide behind while they're breaking into the house through that window. Instead of planting for privacy, I'd plant something fairly low growing and prickly or spiney to serve as a security barrier to anyone who might want to crawl through that window. You could use one of the forms of Chinese holly that have spiney leaves, or you might put your yuccas there if the kind of yuccas you have are fairly spiney or prickley.

If you really want to go with an ornamental tree in the front, I'd plant one of the taller, tree-form crape myrtles and I'd probably choose a multi-trunk one. A crape myrtle will give your four seasons of interest. In the spring, you'll have the new foliage coming out, followed by recurring periods of bloom during the summer, and then the leaves turn some pretty shades in fall before they drop. During the winter, the trunk and limbs look almost like modern architectural elements, especially if you carefully select one of the crape myrtles with especially lovely bark.

If it were my house, I'd save the zebra grass for a side yard or back yard, put the fescue in the boxwood bed with something, preferably a vine, behind it, put the yuccas in front of the window with a crape myrtle in front of them, and put the catmint wherever it would be happy in full sun, but not in a highly visual area just in case it becomes a 'cat toy' for the neighborhood cats.

You know, you could take a photo of the house into a local nursery with you (and I mean a real nursery with trained and experienced nursery personnel, not a garden center at a big box store where many of the garden center employees know nothing about plants) and ask for them to suggest some plants.

Or, you could drive around the neighborhood and see if you spot any landscaping ideas you could 'borrow'. From looking at the homes that are in the neighborhood around yours, you can see what works and looks appealing and in scale with the home and what doesn't.

I'm sure you'll get some good suggestions over on the landscape forum too, undoubtedly from people a lot more experienced in landscape design than me.

Good luck landscaping the new house.

Dawn

As usual, Dawn has given great advice. I would just add that if you don't like the bedroom windows going all the way to the floor, you could pretend they don't and place a low chest in front of them and then put blinds above it.

And I love the idea of crape myrtle in the front yard. There are hardy standard cultivars that get 15-20 ft tall and have all the advantages that Dawn mentioned. But please if you do put one in, let it grow. Don't do as so many do and mutilate it by cutting half the growth off it every year. Usually people do this who have planted a standard type where they should have used a dwarf, but sometimes I see it done to plants that are planted out in the open with plenty of room. One beheading can deform a tree forever.

Do you not like boxwood? Because the plants you have could be transplanted to either side of the bedroom window and allowed to attain a more natural teardrop shape.

Thanks Dawn and Mulberry.

I really appreciate the honesty. That's very similar to what the landscape forum said, so I'm going to not force the Zebra Grass to work in the front yard. I like the idea of putting it in our side yard. We have several windows that face a side yard. Their view is of a fence, so Zebra Grass could only help that situation.

When I mentioned privacy for the front bedroom window, I meant security, as you stated, by planting something with sharp leaves. I hesitate to plant the Yuccas there, though, because I worry they would spread and take over.

I love the idea of a climbing vine on the wall. Do you suggest adding some sort of trellis or will they be able to climb the stone without assistance?

And Mulberry, yes, I'm not a fan of boxwood and would much rather give them to somebody who will love them rather than plant them somewhere else in hopes that I'll be able to tolerate them. It's just a personal preference.

Appledeco,

Whew! I'm relieved you weren't offended. I'd never deliberately say something to hurt or offend someone, but some folks mistake honesty for meanness.

I've only seen yucca grow and spread in the wild....like on the rocky limestone hillsides in the uppermost parts of the Texas Hill country around Granbury-Stephenville, Texas. I've never seen them 'escape' and go too wild in a yard. I'm not saying that they couldn't or wouldn't, just that I've never seen it. I still think I'd put them in front of that window and take my chances. If they start to run or spread and become invasive you can dig them out later, but you may not ever have to worry about that.

Whether a vine would need a trellis would depend on the vine you select. That's where visiting a local nursery when the plants are in stock helps. You can pick a specific vine, show it to the nursery personnel and ask them if that vine grows by attaching itself to walls or if it needs a trellis. We have native Virginia Creeper growing on the northern exterior wall of our two-story home and I love the way it looks. It also attracts certain moths that I like. It is not evergreen though, and you might rather have an evergreen vine so you aren't looking at a bare wall and dormant vines on that wall all winter.

And, to second what Dorothy said about the crape myrtles, please, please, please let them attain their natural height and shape. I'd say 100% of the crape myrtles I see in commercial plantings are incorrectly pruned, and by that I just mean totally butchered, every spring. Tim and I call it 'crape murders' and when we see them freshly chopped back in the spring, we say "Stop the Crape Murders!" every time. (He's a law enforcement officer, so it might be just a strange cop humor type of thing.)

I'm going to link a crape myrtle website from McKinney, Texas, for you. Led by the great Texas gardening guru Neil Sperry, the city of McKinney is planting vast numbers of crape myrtles (I think they're trying to plant every known variety) to create a 'Crape Myrtle Trails' kind of touristy thing....not to mention they are creating a spectacularly gorgeous town at the same time. So, their Crape Myrtle site is chock full of photos and crape myrtle info.

If you look at the menu on the left side of their website, you'll find a discussion of some of the best crape myrtles, a list of the best ones in each size category and info on their care.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Crape Myrtle Trails of McKinney

I, for one, don't particularly care for Crepe Myrtle, not because they aren't suited to growing in Oklahoma and all the other attributes Dawn pointed out, but because they are so overplanted and I just get tired of seeing them everywhere, like Cannas.

On Zebra Grass? Whoo, watch out cuz it can get out of control easily; needs dividing every 3 or 4 years to stay looking good, and if you don't divide it, it often reverts to solid green. My neighbor grows it and he got very disapppointed with the performance of his Zebra Grass and removed it entirely. But, if you have the wherewithal to divide it mercilessly, it will do you in good stead. Also, remove the solid green foliage that occasionally will appear cuz if you don't it will all eventually revert to solid green. This is a concern with a lot of variegated foliage plant.

I just poof my catmint up after the cats have layed in it, like you would a flat hairdo and it seems to respond. Yes, I have broken branches here and there, but the plant seems to welcome that bit of pruning by responding with hew growth and flowering.

I think your Fescue would look good planted in front of the catmint (to pick up some blue and add some architectural interest) and plant a taller plant behind the catmint, and maybe a shrub that is taller (around 6') in the middle or behind the Catmint. Ornamental grasses like Miscanthus 'Morning Light', or Panic Grass 'Heavy Metal' are nicely behaved grasses and the faded flowers add winter interest to the garden.

A pretty vine that will do well in part shade is Clematis. 'Jackmanii' is a virtually carefree Clematis and blooms are purple.

Welcome to the forum!

Susan