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Explain basic landscaping to me like I'm 5
I just cut down a bunch of holly bushes in my front yard, since I hate them for their prickly leaves. I don't really like bushes of any kind anyway.
I'm looking to plant a mix of plants and flowers in the front of my house, preferably perennials. I want the plants to be fairly low maintenance.
This is what I was planning to do, so please tell me if I'm wrong, because I know nothing about landscaping:
1- Remove all the holly bushes, digging them out by the roots.
2- Clean up the bed, removing all the old pinestraw and debris.
3- Add in some fertilized soil
4- Edge the bed with that black plastic edging
5-plant the flowers/plants, being sure to leave space in between
6-water
7-possibly add pinestraw on top of the soil
Does this sound right? The bed is in full direct sunlight all day, so I would pick plants suited to that.
Re: Explain basic landscaping to me like I'm 5
Sounds like a good plan but I'd use compost instead of fertilized soil and make sure to mulch the bed with something (doesn't have to be pine straw...I'm not a big fan of that anyway) so that your soil stays cool and moist. Mulch will also keep the weeds down and make them easier to pull out.
Is this bed a foundation bed? Evergreen shrubs like holly are used to anchor the beds, provide a nice backdrop for your flowers, and give you winter interest. There are a lot of better shrubs than holly you could use including some that flower. Perennials have a short time frame for looking good (bloom for a week or two, some go summer/fall dormant, some brown in the hot summer sun, some don't pop start growing until late in the season, etc.). That is where evergreens come into play. They look good all year round. Just throwing that out there.
I'm such a novice to this that I decided to highlight all the words I don't understand. That is how much of a beginner I am.
LOL OK sorry.
Compost - Organic matter that is decomposed overtime. You can usually buy some for cheap from your local town/city. Otherwise you can buy it in bags from a local garden center but it costs more. If you want to continue gardening you can start your own pile but it will take a little while before you can use it. You can put lawn clippings, leaves, food scraps, cardboard, newspaper, and a lot of other things in there.
Foundation bed - Flower bed along your house. It runs along your foundation aka cement base (either basement walls or slab on grade).
Evergreen shrub - A bush/shrub that keeps it's leaves and is green all year round. Holly is an example. In the middle of winter with snow piled on top of it it is still green.
Anchors the beds - This is term gardeners use to describe the base plants in a bed which are typically shrubs. When you start with a new flower bed you typically start with the shrubs and then put perennials or annuals around them. They are the biggest, add height to an otherwise flat flower bed, and provide year round interest. Hence they anchor the bed.
HTH!
Prepare yourself that no matter how well you dig up those Holly bushes, that won't be the last you'll see them!!!! Those suckers are tough to kill off completely.
Directly along the lines of what FoxinFiji mentioned, if you rip out you foundation evergreens, and plant flowers and perennials, what do you have in the winter? NOTHING. A hideous, icy mudpit.
Please plan carefully before you do something drastic.
Along the lines of another responder, Holly is extremely tough to eradicate. If you leave a small portion of root behind, which is almost unavoidable, it will resprout. It's too bad you dislike it, because it is one of the few near-zero maintenance plants you will find.
Why don't you see if you can get a landscape designer to come to your home? Is that in your budget? It's money well spent.
I've had them come to two houses, and it's been just $70 both times.
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The Googlesites Paint Bio
Thinking of doing cosmetic updates to a dated home? These were our costs.
Thank you for talking to me like I'm "slow", it's just what I needed.
For the other responders, I live in Georgia so I'm not too worried about an icy mudpit in winter.
As for the holly being difficult to eradicate, that really sucks. I really hate the holly. I hadn't thought about a landscape designer because I assumed it was $$$. I could maybe swing $70 though, what does that get me? Just a consult, or an actual plan?
Thanks for the responses.
If you like the look of perennials (I think they're softer, more graceful) there are evergreen perennials and groundcovers. A mix of those with deciduous perennials might tide you through winter. I'm most familiar with the ones in my area, but it's a very different climate. You might try using a plant finder to look for some near you. Just google "plant finder" and see which one you like using. You can even get fancy and see if you can find one adapted for your region, like Sunset magazine has for the West.
But shrubs don't just add color, they give a structural element that's hard to achieve otherwise. If you really hate all the evergreen shrubs, you could go for a deciduous shrub that has a winter interest -- unusually colored or textured bark, or even unusual looking branches (take a gander at Harry Lauder's Walking Stick to see what I mean). If you really hate everything, maybe an obelisk or trellis with a vine? Mostly, you want something, somewhere that draws the eye upward or your bed will register as flat and less interesting blur. You need different heights, different textures, different colors to draw the eye around, just like you would with a painting.
Like everyone else has said, if you can swing it, a designer or landscape architect is going to give you your most cohesive look, and quicker, with a lower likelihood of costly mistakes. But if you know the risks and want to do it anyway, you'll learn it. Your local library, extension service and a good nursery should become your friends.
"The meek shall inherit the earth" isn't about children. It's about deer. We're all going to get messed the fuckup by a bunch of cloned super-deer.- samfish2bcrab
Sometimes I wonder if scientists have never seen a sci-fi movie before. "Oh yes, let's create a super species of deer. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG." I wonder if State Farm offers a Zombie Deer Attack policy. -CaliopeSpidrman
2- I wouldn't remove the old pinestraw unless it was a super thick layer. It'll just break down on its own if you put more dirt and mulch on top. (note: we don't use pinestraw here, so maybe there's a reason to take it up? But if not, then why bother?)
4- I'd add the edging before I added more soil. Gives you something to fill up.
If it's next to the foundation of your house, make sure the dirt doesn't come up too high on the house. You're supposed to have some concrete showing, makes it harder for bugs and termites to get inside.
Especially when you don't have snow, a bunch of dead and brown plants are not very attractive in January. Go look at landscapes you like. What do they have that is big? A bush? Ornamental grasses? A short tree? A big rock? There will be something that stands out that they plant around. Snap some pictures and then try to ID the plants online.