Help this bachelor landscape his first house, please!

Hello everyone! Hope this finds you well. I'm new to all of this landscaping/decorating business and it's not my forte, to say the least. I was hoping some people here might give me some fresh ideas for my front yard.

When I bought the house last May, there was hardly in grass in the front yard. So last summer I spent most of my time trying to repair the yard and getting some desperately needed water to the Texas soil which had been neglected by the previous owners who preferred to PARK on the area directly in front of the right picture window. Additionally, I had a MASSIVE pine tree removed about 3 months ago which still needs to be fully repaired (pictures below).

The property itself is fairly level for a bit but then begins to slope pretty badly when approaching the street, making it hard to properly irrigate. My initial thought was to create a massive rock garden along that slope, limiting maintenance for me, as I travel pretty frequently. Does this seem like a good idea or would that look bad?

Main thing I'm here for is a few fresh ideas - maybe even links to some other yards that might act as inspiration for my modest place. I want to do as much of this as possible on my own, so please keep that in mind. Now here are some pictures:

Here are some pictures for reference:

Diagonal from right.

Diagonal from left:

ocelot, you are right near the rose captiol of the world, tyler which has some fine rose nurseries. i would start there.
http://www.chambleeroses.com/FAQ.html

Which direction does the front of your home face? [N,S,E,or W]

and were you planning on replanting any tree/trees in your front yard? i'm just thinking about shade.

My house faces the north.
Not interested in roses.
And I DEFINITELY want to plant some smaller trees like crepe myrtles or Japanese maples. Just haven't decided WHICH to plant or how many.

Most Japanese Maples won't like the hot sun, and with how expensive they are (1 gallon plant can be 20-40 dollars!), I wouldn't say they're a "beginners" plant.

What zone are you? 8?

There are lots of nice, smaller trees, ones that stay under 20-25' or so:
Ornamental flowering plum-there's one called 'Purple Pony' that is a dwarf, and only gets 12' I can't spell, and can't find the botanical name, but it's something like Krowter Vesiouvous
Saucer Magnolia-many varieties
Dogwood
Sumac
Yoshino Cherry
Japanese Crabapple
There are also several 'bushes' that get very tall, and are made into "patio trees", so they'll be around 15' or less.
Your best bet is to visit your local nursery (real one, not Lowes), and they'll be able to show you what will work for you.

HTH,
Teresa

Scout your neighborhood during different seasons & see which shrubs & trees you like. You don't need to copy them, just see what appeals to you. I do hope as suggested there is a Real nursery available.

I also noticed quite the slope to the front area. I imagine it's difficult to water/mow the lawn there. I'd put in a small retaining wall using the cottage stones, which would work well with the house. About 2' or so would probably make a big difference. Now if you do that, you'll be able to bring in some GOOD soil to fill in behind it, and that would really help the compact soil you have, and replenish the nutrients that the Pine used up.
Another version of this would be if you used natural stone to make the retaining wall, then you could use some of the same/matching stone, and make your rock garden, along the front. You could use some drought tolerant grasses (tall), to soften the area.
Put a winding path from the front porch down to the front of the driveway, to take up space, so that you won't have to have so much water-guzzling lawn. You could have a 3' border on either side of the walkway with grasses and succlents, more rocks, etc.
What do you think?

Great suggestions, Teresa. Pretty much exactly what I was hoping to hear when I came here. And yes, I'm in zone 8. I'm such a visual person that I'm sure a lot of what you guys and girls are describing is just going right over my head. I need to open up MS Paint and put together a crude visual of what I THINK you're describing.

As for the retaining wall, could you clarify what you mean by cottage stones? From what I've read a 2' wall shouldn't be too difficult to do by oneself and can be just a stacked wall.

BTW, I like those Yuchino Cherry trees and the Japanese Crabapples.

And also, there are tons of real nurseries around here.

Would anyone here agree with a recommendation I received to kill off the existing grass, till, and sod?

>>to kill off the existing grass, till, and sod?

amazingly enough ... last year when i was new here, i was reading a thread about laying sod over existing grass.... i thought, "no way would that work" but i guess it does.

I think before you do any of that, and yes new sod would probably make it look nicer, especially if you are re-doing the whole yard ..... wait until you at least have a design in mind, because you would hate to have to tear up new sod that you have laid, to put in flower beds or new trees.

Since the front of your home faces north .... you can incorporate a few hostas since they are shade lovers. There are some that will do fine in TX.

Will Hosta grow in your area? Get bks from the library on plants once you have decided on areas of your property to plant. I think planning the layout is the first step before investing in plants. Different thread have suggested garden design layouts--foreign to me as I don't have knowlege of computer graphics, but they can help those who do. Glad to hear that you have area nurseries. They can be a treat just to walk through them.

Hostas are definitely something that I see a lot of in this area. I know a coworker has a ton of them at his lakehouse and i see them all the time at lowes/home depot/the one nursery I go to when bored.

I'm thinking I'll go ahead and TRY to come up with a general design for the yard with some software or just using MS Paint before I make any sod decisions, that's a good tip.

You can get the cottage stones @ either Lowes or Home Depot. They have a lip underneath so they grab the stone under them. The smaller ones (12 x 4), are easy to work with, and are fairly light. The larger ones, are pretty heavy, (for me), but as long as your back is good, they might work fine for you.
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=12200-000000215-81100&lpage=none
Lowes calles them 'Old Castle', the hardware store here, calls them 'Cottage Stone', they're pretty much the same thing. I can't find a pic of the larger ones, I *think* they don't put real heavy stuff on the websites, but you get the idea.

As far as killing off the existing sod, IF there are a lot of weeds, or it's crabgrass (which is VERY difficult to get rid of), you probably have to Round Up the whole thing, and start from scratch. But if it's just a grass that isn't doing well because of the variety, or because the soil is compacted, you *might* be able to just re-seed it. You just buy a bag of seed you like, and using your spreader, put the new seed right on top of the old sod. The new grass with grow along with the old, and it will look better...BUT it kinda boils down to WHY does the sod look bad? IF you don't correct an underlying problem, the new sod, or grass seed, will just look bad too.
Of course all of this would be the last thing you do because you want to get all the hardscaping done first.

Oh, and a Vitex tree standard can be very cool looking too...

How's the design coming along?

I was also thinking, if you did the whole windy pathway from the front door to the middle of the driveway, or so, you could make the whole corner (if you're facing the house it would be to the right), a flower bed. Maybe with a small tree, maybe a Weeping cherry tree right in the middle with some pretty flowers, or small flowering shrubs at the base of it...just a thought...

Well I'm writing you this message in one of the most exhausted states I've ever been! I broke up the concrete walkway and loaded it in the truck yesterday and cleaned it all up. This morning I took it all to the landfill and unloaded it. THEN the fun stuff...put in a flagstone walkway. It took a really long time but it turned out really well, I think. I'll post pictures tomorrow hopefully. As for the garden/flower bed idea...that's exactly the plan! I was thinking the exact same thing you are. I WISH i could get a japanese maple but I don't know if I wanna spend the money; they do really well in this part of texas. I probably won't plant anything until next weekend but it's definitely going to look MUCH better than last year. I'm looking forward to seeing it all come together.

Also, I bought some grass seed today. I'll probably start seeding the yard monday if I can. if it works, great. If not, I'll just sod it in September.

I saw them do a revamp of a lawn on this old house and they just used an aerator(raking up all the plugs) and ran over the whole lawn several times, sprinkled ammendments and compost to fill in the holes and reseeded with a similar existing mix and it plumped up and renewed the lawn without all the work. Took care of all those bare spots and patches. I would start spending some time at the nurseries and decide how much work you want to put into maintaining your plantings. If you want minimal work start talking to the best nursery people and pick low maintenance and ow water plants and incorporate lots of mulching and weed fabric to give it clean classic lines. I redid my fathers entire from yard with about 400 dollars using just a few classic slow growing shrubs and some easy flowering flowering tree form standards to give his yard beauty with no work for him since he is elderly. Just depends on how much time you have to devote to your yard and what are your choices for beauty.

Picture updates from the walkway project...

And another...


I'm very happy with how this turned out. It was a LOT of work with just shovels, sledgehammers, and the strength of my back....but I can definitely live with those results. Started on Friday, finished Saturday night. I think it'll really start to look good when I get those garden beds prepped and planted!

This message was edited Mar 23, 2008 8:34 PM

Very nice! That had to be a ton of work though with having to take the concrete out...not the sort of job I'd tackle myself so I'm really impressed!

Thank you very much! It was very, very tiring. I'm gonna be sore all week, no doubt!

Wow! Nice job! I thought I did alot of hard work this weekend, at least I didnt have to remove any cement :o)

Have you decided if you will be putting a retaining wall? Our front yards have a similar slope here. Our neighbors put in a retaining wall and faced it with flagstone, then they leveled off the lawn. I'll try to remember to take a photo tomorrow. We are planning to do the same in our yard, because our lawns meet in the middle like yours... lots of work though!

Have you considered white birch in the front yard to replace the pine?

I can see a coral bark JM there too :o)

Good luck with the achy muscles !
Anjl

Anji,
The retaining wall is just going to have to wait. Actually, I probably will not be doing that. It's just too much money for the amount of time I'll be in the house. Additionally, the water/gas/utilities and stuff are all located where I would want to put the wall.

WOW, nice job! What a huge difference that made!

Too bad you're not doing the retaining wall, but I hear ya on the expense. I've put them all around my property, and I've lost count on how much I've spent. I really don't even want to know...probably could have bought myself a new car instead...LOL

If you are interested in Succulents, there is a low growing succulent that thrives here. I see it planted all over the place. Its green most of the year, but right now it is covered (and I mean completely covered) in a bright raspberry daisy like flower. I'm not sure of the name of it, but if your interested I can get a photo and we can have someone ID it. Thought about it for my yard, but I have no more room :o) LOL! JLMK
Anjl

Hey anji,
I wouldn't mind seeing a picture of that succulent you're referring to!

It's some sort of ice plant--there are a couple different kinds that are common out here. There are a couple of Carpobrotus species which are invasive, and then there's Drosanthemum floribundum which isn't invasive but I think can still be sort of weedy. Of course if it's in someone's garden then there are other possibilities as well, but if it's growing in parks, etc then it's likely one of the first three on this page http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/specieslist.cgi?rel-namesoup=contains&where-namesoup=aizoaceae&where-prettyreglist=Alameda&rel-upper_elev_ft=gt&where-upper_elev_ft=&rel-lower_elev_ft=lt&where-lower_elev_ft=&where-caltranslifeform2=any&where-native=any&rel-calipc=gte&rel-rarity=invalue&where-pretty_plantcomm=any&orderby=taxon

OH -- i just LOVE ice plants... not hardy here though, quite to my disappointment.

I think the name of that one is Delospourm (sp?) I've got some covering a hillside in the front of my place. It's blooming now, and is really pretty...

Delosperma cooperi is a common one that people plant on purpose in their yards...the ones I mentioned are the ones you'll find growing where people didn't plant them on purpose. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1928/

I believe that the one I see is this one, or similar to it : http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/158664/

One of my neighbors has it growing in front of their yard. They live on a corner lot and people kept walking across their yard, so they planted this as a 4 ft border around the front to discourage the traspassing. It is absolutely beautiful when in full bloom (now) and green the rest of the year. very low water. They didnt know the name of it, just told me it was an 'ice plant' I'll have to ask them about invasiveness. I'll also take a picture when I go on my walk this evening.
Anjl

ecrane --- that is what i've tried growing... it says hardy to zone 5a, which i am, but it still died on me 2 yrs in a row.
I've also seen it listed as zone6 .... oh well... i really love that purple.

I loved the ice plants when we traveled in California last year -- seemed like everyone had them and they were spectacular! Back to earlier thoughts -- if your friend has an abundance of hostas and they are getting thick, perhaps you could help him out by taking some off his hands! Every several years, I separate mine, also my Stella D'Oro daylilies, which I share with my gardening neighbors. You might also want to look at some of the ornamental grasses which don't take loads of water (that watering bill can get out of hand if you aren't careful). Last year, I purchased two pots of Muhlenbergia (common name, muhley grass) which we put on each side of our driveway at our home in AR. In the fall, it turns into what I call a pink mist and is beautiful. Most of the ornamental grasses don't require a lot of water and that is helpful. We watered it when we planted it, and left the rest up to Mother Nature.

ocelot_ark
Nice job. You decide to do it and it gets done. Wish I could move that fast. May be too late for you since you already have idea about what you want to do, but I saw this today (I hope it loads for you) it is a 'before' photo and the next one is the after. I am sure if you were interested in the details, flowers, shrubs, etc., you could find on the HGTV website.


http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/dc_design_other/article/0,1793,HGTV_3379_5770336_15,00.html

I have slowly been covering the sloping are of my front yard with ground cover plants. Crainsbil, sedum, coral bells, creeping phlox, pinks etc. This is a west facing hill, but with a lot of shade from a large oak. There are some kind of flowers blooming most of the growing season, but when there aren't there is enough difference in the greens to give it interest. No moving and it is showy. The best part is when it is well established virtually weed free.

When I plant on this hill I first put black plastic over the garden area for 4 -5 weeks to kill back the grass, I then take the plastic off and put in a 3-4" layer of farmpost (horse manure ground up with bedding straw). Because the hill is steep next I have a layer of burlap to hold it in place. A light layer over the burlap to hide it, slice a hole in the burlap large enough to put your plant in and tuck it back around the plant. That is the slow track.

Fast track, your hill is about as steep as my back yard where I don't need to be as worried about erosion. There I cover the grass with 5 - 6 layers of newspaper then 3-4" of farmpost and you can plant the same day. This method is surprisingly weed free as well. The newspaper smothers out the grass and weeds. Of course seeds to blow in, but they are easy to keep ahead of.

Fantastic garden area--we all could learn from it.

Thank you.

Zen -- yes it is beautiful.

Do you have any other pics posted of your "award winning" gardens? In UMW possibly? I'd love to see more images.

I post photos here and there, but have never put together a group of them. I keep saying I will and never take the time to do it.