ladylotus...The key to placement is don't get in a hurry. Take a few tours of the design setting. Then decide on your first plant/plants. Your focal specimens first and then build around them for color and size. I always do rocks last. The placement of plants is and should be a first concern. I have a positive feeling you will do fine. Let's see some photos of your project.

Best,

Dave

Dave, thanks for the vote of confidence. Once I get a bit further along I will post photos. Right now all there is...is black soil. I am slowly taking out perennials in one or two gardens per year until I get them all in conifers except perhaps one little garden. Perennials are just to time consuming to keep the gardens looking nice.

"A partial photo for your enjoyment."

And I do indeed enjoy it. Thanks Dave.

tj

Brilliant Dave! This is what I've wanted to do for years, although on a smaller scale because I have a small yard. I've done butterfly gardens, and watched as predatory wasps found my yard and carried all the caterpillars off. Then I switched to Hummingbird gardening, and found one 8x4 bed, and all my deck pots of flowers sufficient to feed them. So after being absolutely mesmerized by a youtube video by "amazingmaples" of JM's ( I already have 6) and conifers, I started the learning process...which led me here.

Excelent advice BTW, start with one and build slowly or be frustrated to the breaking point! I learned that lesson the HARD WAY!!!

Where do you get your large rocks? Do you buy them and have them delivered, or scrounge them from farmers and construction sites?

Looks like I'll have to start playing a few bucks a week on the MegaLotto again!

Most rocks I have been scrounging for years although some of the larger ones called Texas holey rock I purchased and hauled home.

Thanks Dave. I think I'm going to scrounge as well. We've got some really awesome Pennsylvania Bluestone just lying all over the place. I came up with the idea of breaking them into 2 or 3 pieces (from the bottom) and placing them back together in place, and possibly leaving a gap and planting a dwarf cultivar in the crevice so it looks like it naturally grew there. Feel free to use that idea, I copied many of yours already!

I hope you don't mind, but I C&P all your pics to use for inspiration when I'm planning my beds. Your work is beautiful and inspiring and will make planning and execution easier and less costly for me. Thanks!

Dave, your garden was so beautiful before, that I was afraid when you started redesigning that whether I would like it as much afterwards. The grass around the beds seemed to provide balance and set off the conifers so well, and it's very difficult to improve on perfection. However, I should have known better than to doubt the artist. The new design is just as beautiful, maybe even more so. The plants play off so well against each other! You truly are an artist. Please do continue to post photos like you always do, and sometimes take us on a tour by labeling the plants. Your garden is a true inspiration.

I must ask, what is that columnar bright chartreuse tree in between the two blues in the center of the photo and the mounded very yellow plant at its base?

Hi wannabegardner.. Seems like you should be a real Gardner now. I bet you are.

The columnar bright chartreuse tree, Thuja occidentalis 'Jantar', a very narrow growing upright. It is really yellow and camera setting didn't pick it up. The other mounded yellow cultivar is called Juniperus horizontalis 'Gold Strike' both are Iseli conifers.

Best,

Dave

Very nice, Dave!

Will you please identify the very large light blue tree in the back on the left?

Also can you tell me what size it was when planted and how many years it's been in the ground? Thank you!

catkinZ8a... Cupressus glabra 'Blue Pyrmid'

Thanks, Dave! Off to see the finished product!