Texas Gardening: What to plant out front?, 1 by careyana

careyana wrote:
I could use some help!

This spring DH and I decided to put in some plants in front of our house. The requirements and preferences cut our list to rather low. We wanted two 'anchor' plants and some interesting plants in between. We ended up with Agapanthus "Lily of the Nile" as the anchors with Ruellia 'Katie' and lavender in between.

Our biggest issue is deer. They are NOT shy on our street (I had to chase one off the porch this weekend) and browse everything. Second issue is lighting. Our house is east/northeast-facing with trees so sunlight is fairly minimal. Thirdly, we uprooted lantana and sage as they were far too leggy/bushy and grew too fast to maintain on our schedules.

So the deer chewed the agapanthus down to the dirt (thankfully they're still alive), the lavendar didn't make is (mostly my fault) and half the Ruellia died before it established. Now, I'm much much smarter than I was a few months ago. I am digging up the lily to put in the backyard away from Bambi and I'm replacing with some lovely Variegated Cast Iron plant. Of course the ruellia has spread its wings a bit so I can replace the deceased cousins. But! We'd like a little more color (if possible) or interesting plants as long as they meet the requirements (2-3' or smaller). There is sooo much in PlantFiles I don't even know where to start! We need all the help we can get. :)

(oh, and the yellow snapdragon are a test. I don't think they'd survive here)

This message was edited Oct 12, 2010 5:31 PM