which should get to 4x4.

which will get 4W x 6H

====>>>

i keep telling you.. nothing really stops growing at some magical height ... but that can be taken care of with pruning ...

but what bothers me... is they look barely 2 feet from the house ...

whats the monster near the porch???

ken

lol, my holly is not a monster. They are planted about 4 ft from the house.

Just to mention, if you are hoping for bountiful blueberries, they need at least one other cultivar to bear much fruit.

boy the distance sure doesnt look like 4 feet ... but that sounds pretty good ... as long as you keep up with pruning.. starting in 3 to 5 years ...

dont worry.. it will be fun ... for a while.. lol

the holly.. could be problematic in regards a safety issue ... if you were in an area where evil doers might pop out.. when you are entering your home ... a hidey hole ... just a thought ...

ken

Modern landscape design-I almost hesitate to use the phrase-has plants existing as discreet units, not a part of a whole or a drift or anything. I don't mean good modern design, just all the sad stuff you see out there. Most shrubs function best as a apart of a whole, not as a supreme being. Somehow, people are forgetting what landscaping is in this day and age. Too much focus on this bark, that fruit, that fall foliage color.....and not enough focus on design elements, function, flow.

Your plants, depending on intended function, are far and away-literally-space far enough apart.

+om

The first plant is an established dwarf burford holly. The next is a knock out rose i planted back in june. Then yesterday i planted a bountiful blue blueberry bush which should get to 4x4. Then next to that is a 'whispering pines' Gardenia which will get 4W x 6H and next is a "shi shi gashira" camelia which should stay kind of small but im not sure of the exact size.

The Dwarf Burford will need to be pruned every season from now on.

The Knock Out, will outgrow that space unless you are planning on chopping it back every year, which many people do. It can be a pain though because of thorns. Of course it looks hideous in winter after it defoliates. Some people don't use deciduous plants in the front street-side and prefer the evergreen year-round look. This is personal taste though. I removed all my Knock-outs due to the P-I-A factor (Pain in A$$).

Good luck with the Gardenia. Hope it does well for you. Perhaps eventually it will outgrow the space too and you can remove the rose to make room for it!

The camellia is a keeper for sure.

What's planted on the corner?

Laceyvail- The blueberry is just for looks. It has a very light blueish foliage. The berrys are for the birds. I dont eat them anyway.

Dave- The camelia is at the corner, but it is a little hard to see. There is a planter behind it with elephant ears. The roses should stay 4x4 but from waht i am reading, they will get much bigger.

I want the holly to get taller and be a tree form. It kind of looks out of control right now, because it had a lot of growth this year and i dont really know how to prune it.

I have to agree w/ dave on the PITA factor of knock-outs. They look lovely for a couple months, but only when they aren't being defoliated by little green worms or other issues. I grow mine in partial shade and it's extremely leggy. I have to trim it back at least 2-3 times during the growing season (initial cut-back and then I trim the super long branches that result from lack of sun). If my husband didn't like it, it would have been ripped out already. It's only saving grace is that it's pretty well-behaved for the 4x4 spot I have it in and easy to keep in bounds.

+2 on Knockouts! One of my least favorite overused plants in modern landscaping. It goes right next to the feather reed grass, Russian sage, and the fake-looking water feature.

+oM

But they are so beautiful.

I actually liked them for a while too! But after a few years of chopping and getting all torn up, I grew out of it.

Also, my local deer ate the buds, so I'd have to spray with deer-away to keep them off. But if I missed a week after a rain, buds gone again.

Now you guys have me questioning weather i should replace them with something else!

Just enjoy them until you are tired of them. A garden is never a static thing.

My thinking is similar to wisconsintom's in that you are thinking of the shrubs as a collection of individual specimens and yet trying to unite them by adding a formal row of Liriope. There doesn't seem to be a unifying concept, just a random selection. I'd make the bed much bigger rather than having a circle round each plant. I'd repeat plants to make the display more coherent and add something with contrasting shape. At the moment it looks very spotty and formless.

floral, now i feel like ive done a bad job. There is not really space to make it much bigger and i dont want to have to worrry about trimming tons of plants every year. I chose stuff that i liked and wanted to see grow. And with the exception of the knock out rose, all those plants were 30-50 bucks a piece. Should i pull all the new plants up? I have seen houses where they have several different plants like i do.. but i also know that most people use only a row of a single plant.

I'd start out giving the lawn a nice flowing shape to get rid of the spotty look. The lawn should go right up against the driveway so when people get out of their car , they're not stepping into plants. To get that flowing look, think of the lawn as being water, like a pond or wide spot in a stream.

For a landscape to be a garden you have to think of the plants as being part of a useful community rather than a randomly placed collection of individuals.

Mike

Should i get rid of the crape myrtles? I put them close to the driveway because i didnt want anything planted in the center of the lawn.

The whole issue of planting some 'favorite individual shrubs' vs. 'establishing an intentional landscape design' has been addressed in numerous other posts. The Landscape Design Forum might be a good place to start reading.

There was an interesting response by karinl(BC Z8) to a post there, a while back. I'll link to it. Too often people select shrubs based on 'oh, I like this and that', and plop them in the ground without an eye for design or curb appeal -- or maintenance. And not everyone is a landscape designer or has the funds to hire one.

But here's a good quote: '....[good] landscaping is not all about plants, in fact, other than trees, plant decisions are [best] made last!...'

Link to old thread: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1401803/working-on-curb-appeal-thoughts?n=26

...and I would say, if you had to start over, you should probably put everything down on paper first, define the beds, and draw in plants based upon how it all should look from curb/street and from inside the house. Decide upon the shapes and sizes of trees, shrubs, ground covers before any specific plant selection. This might include hardscape changes if you have the $$. Otherwise you are planting a botanical garden -- one of everything! Like my wife says I do!

tlbean, you said 'i dont want to have to worrry about trimming tons of plants every year'. If your plants are selected and placed with forethought and planning annual trimming is not inevitable or required. Many shrubs will happily grow year by year with little intervention if they are appropriate for their situation in terms of habit and space allowed. Every few years a little renovation can be done but it is pruning not 'trimming'. Edging around a lot of individuals stuck into a lawn is probably far more work than dealing with a well-selected, well-filled mulched bed of shrubs and perennials. And I'm not quite sure how the row of Liriope would work. How would you cut the grass between the shrubs and behind the Liriope? Or did you mean you'd edge every circle with Liriope?

Floral, i thought about how i would cut the grass too! Doesnt seem to be a good ideal does it?

Does anyone have tips on how to keep what i have and make it look less spotty?

I really love all the plants that i have selected and i would hate to remove them. My gardenia just had its first flower open this morning and it is beautiful.

"There is not really space to make it much bigger"

What?? There's a huge amount of space unless all you care about is lawn. What you have now is just a random collection of shrubs plunked down into the middle of the lawn. Even if they were all the same shrub, it would look spotty.

I'm not at all sure you need to get rid of the shrubs you have chosen but they need to be assembled in a much more carefully thought-out manner, with repetitions of some of the plants and perhaps others to fill in on a lower ground plane. And in a unified, sufficiently wide planting bed, not in individual holes in the lawn.

'Good' landscape layout and design is not something that can be explained in 25 words or less :-) It is a detailed and complex process that takes in a myriad of considerations, of which plant selection and placement are only minor issues. Dave's suggestion to visit the Landscape Design forum makes a great deal of sense. One of the regulars there (Yardvaark) is a professional designer and is very generous with his advice. Or hire a local designer for an onsite consultation - the $100 or so investment is well worth it to help you create a well-planned and designed garden with site appropriate plants that compliment each other and the house.

I'm sorry to be so blunt but what you have now is just a hot mess!

Oh My Gosh people! These words are cutting like a knife.

You guys are harsh. LOL I wonder what my neighbours are thinking now.....

I honestly think that the blue foliage of the blueberry will contrast nicely with the color of the knock out roses. And the white flowers of the gardenia look good anywhere. To the left of the huge hollie in front of the steps is a trio of dwarf hardy hibiscus

So there is some repitition although it is hard to see them in the pic behind the crape myrtle. There is also another 2 crape myrtles in front of that one although you can only see one of the others in the pic. Also, not in the pic is a planting of 2 dwarf nandina with a red colored barberry in the middle and i purple foliaged peach tree. And there is also a little gem magnolia. the only things i plan to remove are 2 of the crape myrtles. I will post more pics later.

I'm not sure you need to REmove anything. Just adjust, add more things and coordinate it all. Don't rush out and start shifting things. Think it through first. I think you are still in the mindset of collecting specimens rather than creating a garden. If you can't imagine it in your head do what was recommended above and draw the space out to scale. Also GG's post above was full of good tips.

Thanks Ked, that is good advice.

I think i will contemplate what to do over the next several months and then maybe plant some sets of perennials about 2 feet infront of the shrubs.

One thing i hate doing is digging up something i already planted, especially if it is doing well. I will definetly draw my ideas out first.

As Dave pointed out, "And not everyone is a landscape designer or has the funds to hire one". There are several professional Landscape Designers with many years experience lurking in this thread with very good advice. Listening to them is a shortcut to a successful landscape in all aspects.

Yes, you can get a lot of bad advice on the Internet. You just have to separate the grain from the chaff.

Mike

"One thing i hate doing is digging up something i already planted, especially if it is doing well."

This maybe one of the primary indicators of a serious gardener - moving plants around until you find the right look with the right plant in the right place. We all do it or have done it and sometimes multiple times. Back in the day (before design training), my spouse used to remark that my plants should come equipped with wheels because I moved them around so much. It slows establishment a bit but not to any serious degree and it is far better to have selected the right plant for the right spot (by shuffling them around or even better, pre-planning to determine the best location before planting) than to make do with something that rapidly outgrows the space or is otherwise not suited for that specific location or its neighbors.

Some studying of landscape design texts or websites, hiring a professional or even getting input from a pro or two on the LD forum can shortcut some of this for you. How you choose to proceed is always your choice - it is after all YOUR garden. But one of the things you should be thinking about is what you want from your garden.......just a place to stash a bunch of disparate plantings that you happen to like or an aesthetically pleasing setting that showcases your plant preferences, compliments your home and adds to property values.

I know which one I'd pick.

With this new gene splicing I'm hoping to see a cross with some plants with a handcart. Gardengal, maybe we can have some rootballs with wheels after all!

I've moved a lot of plants over the years and am resigned to the fact that some I plant will have to be moved, some before I'm even finished with the backfill.

I call those 'practice' holes. I really don't mind them. That's part of rearrangement, what gardeners call tweaking, but please don't call us Tweakers.

Practice ditches are a whole 'nother matter, ........and I enjoy shovel work.

Mike

Remember it is your space (but on the same hand you did come asking for advice from people who do this for a living!). Gardens and landscapes don't have to all fit the same mold and sometimes it will simply take time to figure out what you like and how you would like to arrange things. That is the great part with plants. If you decide three years down the road you want all of the front shrubbery to match you can move some of the plants to a different spot and change it up. Of course this will be hard labor on your part!

There are many homes we visit where someone has put together somewhat of a "collector garden" where they buy one or two of many different things they like and place them close to each other. Sometimes these are done well and other times not so much. These spaces tend to be appreciated more when one is up close than they do when one is driving by at 25 mph. Obviously you do not have a huge amount of yard so you will want to try and use the space as best as you possibly can but there is nothing wrong with purchasing what you like and figuring out where to put it later.

My main suggestion would be trying to break up the texture a little more in the future- a bunch of shrubs planted together offer little in terms of variability other than when they are flowering. The liriope in front will help this but it is also important to allow for some variability in height (for instance you do not want to have a bunch of the same height of slightly different colors of "green meatballs" lining the front of your home.

You've made a start and now you can enjoy the lifelong process of agonizing over plant selections, layouts, combinations, etc.... Enjoy!

I'll get it together eventually.

Another thing i hate about moving plants is leaving big holes in my yard.

That is one of the most annoying parts and i dont like putting garden soil or potting mix in the holes to level them with the ground.

tlbean,

How much ground do you have on the other side of your driveway? Is it enough ground to transplant one of your crape myrtles there? The biggest one you have, I would transplant it to the other side of your driveway, mabey even towards the street, and realize that you will have to prune it every year so you get a nice bloom on it. Crapes get big, but shouldn't hurt your driveway at all.

I would get rid of the holly, you don't want to have to keep that trimmed as much as you will have to, and get rid of the blue berry, and get rid of the knock out rose, which by the way will draw blood and hurt, and then you will dig it out.

If you really like the gardenia, and it LIVES through your winter, next spring buy some more of them. They make wonderful evergreen shrubs for the front of your home, and you will smell them every time you leave the house. Wouldn't that smell heavenly?

The camellia is small now, I would dig it up and move it forward and more to the right, it looks like when it grows in, it will be at your gutters in no time.

Gardening is a learning process, and it's all about your soil, the look you want, and what plants and shrubs and trees get you that "look". I know you have heavy shade out back, and that is why you are planting the sun lovers out front.

Mabey next spring you can have a tree service come and give you an estimate on how much it would cost to thin the tree out back a little, so if they just cut select branches off, it will allow more sunlight to the back yard and then you can plant more flowers in the back too. I had that done at one of my homes I lived at, its not expensive, doesn't hurt to call.

I only have 5ft and 4 inches on the other side of my driveway. I love my holly and could never get rid of it. The camellia is suppose to be small in maturity.

Here are the now ratty looking hibiscus...

You said it. They look good maybe 3 to 4 months of the year.

I'd keep the holly too. I like them and they add year-round evergreen interest.

Here is the thing - What makes you happy, will make you happy! Take the suggestions you like, and adjust to what your yard, budget and preferences allow. Give it a shot, and if it doesn't work, give something else a shot!

I have to say, I have been working on a blank canvas yard for nearly 5 years, and I've moved things I thought I would never touch, I've listened to these guys, and I've ignored good advice because I felt like it! :) The only thing I actually regret is buying the knock out roses! I'm with most others - mine were a big waste of $ that are bug covered most of the year and sadly a waste of space. They may go this year.

It is all a process that should be a fun, learning experience. Use what you have and like, do some reading and then do what feels right to you!! Enjoy your garden first and foremost.

Liz, that is interesting. I have not seen any bugs on my knock outs. I love the things!

Ohh Lucky you!! Mine were eaten to death by beetles in the fall. They were stems with pitiful flowers by the end of the season. I don't do chemicals so if they don't thrive, they will go away this year.

My issue with Knockouts, here in the frozen land, is that they do not appear to be nearly as cold-hardy as they are touted to be. What I mean by that is, say you come along in early spring and trim out all the rabbit-nibbled stuff and the inevitable dead twigs, it never fails what but that you must return in late spring and catch a bunch of stuff that has subsequently died. Real PITA material. Plus, the initial coloration was off-putting to my eyes. I like bright, but that color always seems harsh. Throw in the Stella daylilies, the feather reed grass, the blah blah blah.....misery truly loves company! In truth though, that hardiness commentary is for up here, and is likely a far different story where TL operates.

tlbean,

I hope you will forgive me if I seem presumptuous, but I am between gardens right now. We've just moved from North Carolina to Colorado and our temporary house is 'done'. So, I've enjoyed the last hour or so playing with your landscape design. I would like to share just a few of my experiences.

1. I had quite a few Knockout roses in my NC landscape, in addition to David Austins, and other shrub roses. I did not find that the Knockouts were a problem. They will, indeed, get larger than 4x4 if they are happy and you allow it. I simply cut mine back to about 12" high in early March. In really good years, I occasionally cut some of the tallest branches back a bit in August, but no later than that.

2. If you do add liriope (I happen to like it as well), be sure to use the clumping variety. Otherwise, you will be cursing it as it spreads further into your beds as well as your lawn. You can cut it back in early March, as well.

3. It is a myth that crepe myrtles should be pruned every year in order to get good flowering. Just read the 'Grumpy Gardener' column at www.southernliving.com.

4. Camellia 'Shishigashira' is one of my favorites. However, it is quite slow growing. In the attached picture, I 'moved' one and added a second one along your driveway. They are so pretty in the fall when everything else is looking a bit tired. Their habit is very graceful. I could take 10 years or more for them to even get to 3 feet tall, so they will remain lost against the house.

5. I 'planted' your gardenia in the space between your windows so it has room to grow and adds softness to the wall. A Knockout on each side would give you good color from May until December, depending on your location in Zone 7.

6. The tree shaped shrub at the corner is Ilex crenata 'Steeds' (Steeds holly). It will give you some height without hitting your gutter.

7. Your dwarf Burford can withstand any kind of pruning you want to do. You can give it a hard pruning in early March. I sometimes pruned in mid-summer, too. If it looks messier than you want by the fall, wait until after a hard freeze to clean it up a bit. Be sure to use hand pruners - not hedge shears. That way, your cuts will be hidden.

8. You will see my bias toward mulched, curved beds. While they take a bit of time to edge (trench) in the beginning, and to get some good mulch put down, the health of your plants will be greatly improved, and cutting your grass will be much easier.

Please forgive me if I've intruded too much. I really miss my own garden!