I have Bermuda grass in that area between the sidewalk and the curb. I hate it. It's hard to water. It's a pain to edge. I hate mowing it. This weekend I just started digging it up. It will probably take me a while so I won't know if I'll regret it until later, but I bet I don't.

Love your garden. It's beautiful!

Since you mentioned euonymus, I will start with that species. I had one I had purchased a few years ago to replace one that the previous owners had. I liked it in spring ehen itvwas sending out new growth - but as I looked at it this year, I realized I didn’t really it’s sill, sprawling growth habit which I had left untrained. I realized I didn’t really love the dang thing, so why am I keeping it? Happy to say it made the shovel prune list earlier this spring. As did a sucky rhododendron I had planted a few years ago. Rhododendron was gifted to a neighbour who seemed ecstatic at what I would call an under performer - meanwhile I was just so happy to be rid of it.

Great pics 'woody'.

Grass in between paving stones. Stone mason recommended it. Hate it. Slowly getting rid of all the grass and replacing it with thyme, as well as the occassional self-seeding cute viola, which stay pretty miniature in between the pavers. Grass is such a pain to eradicate.

Thanks for the nice comments... It's too hot and humid to work out there today and tomorrow it is supposed to rain (fingers crossed that we'll actually get that....) so it'll be Thursday before we get the rest of it down.

cooper- Bermuda grass is not something that grows here but, from what I've read, it sounds like something to be wary about! We don't have a 'hell-strip' but do have a fairly deep ditch between our property and the road. I call the narrow bed we put along the top of the ditch the moat-bed :-)

LaLennoxa - 'Emerald Gaiety' is my favorite euonymus and we have it in several places in the garden and it provides good continuity, visually linking various places in the garden. It just turned out to be too much work and looked too chunky on the arbour so going back to the 'naked' abour seems like the best solution. I'd love to have rhodos here but the soil is not acidic and therefore not suitable - believe me, I've tried to grow them and always fail! So I understand both your neighbour and your positions on rhodos!

deanna - grass between stones would certainly be a PITA :-) I once tried to grow Irish moss somewhere as an alternative - that was a PITA too as conditions were not suitable for that.....

Dee - I have been trying to grow rooguchi clematis in a couple of places over the past couple of years. So far, it just been hanging on so I'd be happy to see all those flowers! Do you cut it back in spring in the way you're supposed to for Group 3? Re the euonymus on the arbour - If we were younger we might be willing to do the work required to keep it trimmer but it just doesn't make any sense at this point. We will be leaving the euonymus plants at the base where they will be easy to keep trimmed to a mound and, if a future owner wants to try growing them up the arbour again, it would be easy to do. (I expect any future owner here is likely to tear out most of the garden....)

but the rooguchi just takes over the rose, and if the rose does bloom at all the blooms are smothered by the rooguchi.

I get you @diggerdee zone 6 CT. I like our rooguchi but it so vigorous. Clearly our obelisk is too small. (Here it is as of today).

And last year for the first time it developed powdery white mildew :(.

(I have wondered what would happen I cut it back right now or even a few weeks ago....would it not bloom?)

Do you cut it back in spring in the way you're supposed to for Group 3?

@woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada, I dont really worry too much about the pruning protocol for various clematis. (Either due to extreme cold or rabbits, all our clematis start literally at ground level each spring!)

Rouge - I have a tendency to ignore the clematis pruning ’rules’ too :-) and just do whatever seems to work best in the particular situation, but I wondered if giving it a hard prune each spring would help control rampant growth… (so far ours has not exhibited the rampant growth tendency unfortunately!)

I’ve had a few “fails” with my arbor as well. I started with clematis Jackmanni, but we want something that will cover the arbor and this never did, after 5 years. Then I tried arctic kiwis, but they often get hit by a late freeze, and this really slows them down. I ended up removing them this Spring, they were planted 3 years ago and never grew taller than 2.5 feet.

This Spring, I planted morning glories seedlings, but forgot to protect them on a night that dipped to -1.

Finally, this winter, I had ordered two roses meant for another arbor that I never bought, so plunked the roses where the morning glories were. I doubt I'll be able to leave the roses there because it's a high traffic area, and I don't want to prune constantly because of the thorns. Anyway, I'm in zone 3 so it's likely that the roses will grow from the ground up every year and will never cover the entire arbor.

We'll see next year! :)

mazerolm - what roses are you trying? We used New Dawn on the south gate arbour and made a rose swag for them - it all looked good, but ow, those thorns...! Eventually we dug them out. The clematises also on that arbour took a beating a few years ago when we moved a lot of things around in that area. I'm still hoping for some recovery.... Ditto the clematises on the north gate arbour which are not as vigorous as they used to be.... *sigh* Arctic Beauty kiwi grows quite well on the chainlink fence on the north side and does a good job as a pollinator for Issai kiwi - but I really grow it for those leaves that remind me of melted strawberry ice cream :-) Arbours and vines are challenges to find a good longterm partnership! Next year is always a hope in the garden performance...!

I do like the effect of your Euonymous Arbor. I like the square shape outer edge with the arch on the inside. I can absolutely see how that would become more work than you might want to do. Also that it is without bloom all season if you can't grow it with something that blooms. But - I wonder if you have gotten a lot of pleasure out of creating it for the past 4 years.

I experiment a lot. I get a lot of ideas and then I want to see where they go. It keeps things interesting. My full sun bed has changed so many times, but I have enjoyed each version of it. And the size of the bed is small enough that ripping things out and starting in a new direction has not been overwhelming. At the same time, it has been a process that allowed me to gain experience, but now I think I have a version that I will stick with for awhile.

From the start, one of my main goals in gardening has been 'low maintenance'. So, any experiment or happy accident that ends up being easy to sustain makes me quite happy. Roses were an experiment for me - an ongoing experiment. I garden organically and always thought roses needed a lot of spraying with chemicals to keep them beautiful, so I avoided growing them. But I love roses, and despite having a small sunny area, I finally thought, why deny myself one of my favorite plants without even trying them. And that was 10+ years ago and now they are a permanent addition to my garden. I wouldn't be without them. I tried so many roses. Searched for 'no spray' roses and my timing was good because breeders were focusing more on creating healthy roses. I shovel pruned a lot and just did so with another one last year. But I've ended up with some winners that end up being one of the easier plants that I grow and the most rewarding.

On the 'low maintenance' front, I have a happy accident on a low fence section by my garage. I don't have a lot of places to grow vertically, yet I am drawn to vines and climbers. I've bought climbing roses, honeysuckle and Clematis thinking I would finally erect some trellis. Meanwhile, I planted them in front of this low fence section as a holding area, waiting for the needed support, which never came. [g] And as time has gone by, they all have thrived along that fence. I ignore them. I haven't fertilized. I didn't water them any more than anything else in that area of the garden. I barely pruned them and they have now become one big tangle that is very healthy and vigorous and an area that I look forward to every year to see it in bloom. They all bloom at the same time, which was unplanned. They have not had any insect or disease issues, knock on wood. So without trying, I ended up with an area that gives me a lot of pleasure with just about no attention at all. It's at the point, where I think it was meant to grow there and to be together and I don't think I should move it at all, even if I did suddenly have vertical support somewhere else to give them. Best of all, there are 3 roses there, that are growing well and blooming in an area that does not have full sun.

I have two areas that I planned that are not working out and are ready to get a redo. My vegetable garden is a real disappointment to me. My son built wood raised beds with trellises and I was so happy to start growing there, but, I have a lot of trees around the property and I thought we were far enough away from them, and as far away as I could get on our small property, but little did I know, that tree roots - esp Maples - will seek out the best conditions around them and move their roots there to make use of them. Which is what they did with my lovely new raised beds. [g] I was pretty surprised that it only took 12 months to go from nice loose fluffy soil in the beds, to soil choked with tree roots. This definitely defeats part of the reason for a raised bed, not to have to turn them over every season. So every spring, I have to dig over every bed and pull out all the tree roots. The raised beds are just starting to rot out and I may get one or two more seasons from them and then they will be replaced.

I don't want to give up vegetable gardening, it's what got me started in gardening, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do next. Possibly large raised containers that will eliminate the possibility of tree roots. I'm also considering that if I make them a certain height, I might prevent damage from rabbits which have become an annual problem for me.

The second area that has not worked out at all, is a long bed that I planned to grow as a mixed bed. It was along a lot line that backs up to a neighbor who has a lot of spruce trees and a mature Sycamore tree very close to the lot line on the other side. The same issue - tree roots. I've tried so many plants there and nothing has thrived really. At least not what I wanted to thrive. [g] Shrubs that I tried that didn't work out, did great when I moved them to other areas. Right now in a misguided attempt to take advantage of a 'native' vine - Virginia Creeper - the area is overrun with the vine and I've made a lot of work for us to get that out of there.

So a big redo is planned for that area too. It is good timing because two of my neighbors are planning additions, etc. And I need more privacy, so I'm going in a new direction with those plans, so really, what I started out to do with a mixed border would not have fit the bill now any way and would have still needed a redo.

PM2 I've scaled down my vegetable gardening a lot. I used to grow many, many things, but I found we didn't always eat things when they were ready to be eaten. This year I swore I was only going to do some tomatoes and cukes, Then my son asked for some peppers. I had some lettuce seeds so I sowed them too. I bought some bean seeds too. Then my friend who has a huge vegetable garden asked me if I wanted any plants. I went expecting to get two or three tomato plants (varieties I hadn't started myself) and came back with 9 tomatoes, some peppers, several eggplant, and some herbs. But she said if I didn't want them they were going into the compost pile! I couldn't let that happen!

I do not cut back my rooguchi clematis. To me that falls under "pruning", something that terrifies me lol. I did actually plan to try this spring but as usual I procrastinated and then figured it was too late to really cut back. I did some minor trimming of dead stuff. But I've never cut it back and it's never seemed any worse for wear.

You can see how tall it gets. The other side of the arbor is a more recently planted jackmanii and another Zephy. The rose on the side with the rooguchi is completely hidden by it. One of them has to move!

On a side note, I have a love-hate relationship with this little fence. Or should I say the lichen on it. If I saw this in a Martha Stewart magazine or a British gardening magazine, I'd sigh and swoon and wish I had such a thing in my garden. In my garden, every time I pass it I think how it needs a good scrubbing haha!

:)

Dee

Dee, maybe the universe is trying to tell you not to give up on Vegetable gardening! [g]

Pruning Clematis - I only buy those that can be cut back to the ground in spring. I have Duchess of Albany and jackmanii on a trellis and I cut it back to the ground this spring and it's already to the top of an 8ft trellis.

Dee - I have an old worn, faded 4 ft fence section that I am so glad is solid in the ground because it took a long time to look so old that it does look 'vintage' and I'm enjoying it. [g]

The holding area with the 'happy accidental' combination of vines and climbers is just starting to bloom and looks like it has potential again to be a winner this year,...it's dark out there today!

Oh I remember this holding area PM2! I believe you've shared pictures of it in bloom and it is quite lovely! Be sure to show us when it is in all it's glory!

:)

Dee

PM2 - what roses do you grow? The only ones left here are China roses I grew from seed many, many years ago and the ’Paprika’ and ’Peachy Cream’ OSO Easy roses, all of which never have had disease problems or require special attention and all produce colourful hips after the flowers finish. We grow veggies in pots on the driveway here, which is the only available sunny spot. Mostly now it is largely cherry tomatoes and leaf lettuce and basil for DH’s sister who moved in with us a year ago - she likes pasta and salads and thinks it’s lots of fun to grow her own ingredients!

My Roogouchi clematis is not as vigorous as any of yours!

Woody, right now, I have a few that perform well for me, stay healthy without chemicals and produce a good amount of flowers that are fragrant and usually at least two flushes of flowers.

'Julia Child' is the rose I've had the longest with yellow flowers and it is a great performer. I've had it at least 7 years. The only drawback for me, was that the flowers are smaller than I was hoping for. So I went looking for larger flowers.

Then I tried 'Prairie Sunrise' - which is a Buck's shrub rose. The flowers are not like a shrub rose though, their large and look more like a tea rose. Fragrant as well with an Apricot color. Foliage has been healthy as well. I added three roses 2 seasons ago? And I shovel pruned one last year, and the best of those three is...

'Beverly' which I'm very happy with too. Large pink flowers, lots of petals, fragrant, healthy. It's turning out to be a bit of a climber. I shaped it like a bush rose this year and it needs support. I think it might grow to be an 8ft climber if you pruned it that way and gave it support.

Those are growing in a mixed bed with perennials and Hydrangea Lillte Lime and some grasses. Then I have the 3 climbers I talked about in the post above. 'Penelope' is a once bloomer with small pale apricot/cream color flowers with a mild old rose fragrance. VERY vigorous. I've seen photos of it as a huge dense shrub. I cut it down to the ground a couple of times but it comes back well. I have 'New Dawn' in there with that, which you have had so you know what that is like. And I added 'Aloha' a few years ago that is a short climber. Healthy, fragrant, deeper pink flowers. Not as vigorous as the other two.

They're just starting to bloom but I have older photos ....

Aloha

New Dawn

Prairie Sunrise

Julia Child and Beverly

But - there are so many 'no spray' roses on the market now, that you should be able to find any kind of rose you like that has a good chance of staying healthy without chemicals.