My mom lives in Rochester, WA.. I believe she is in zone 7B. She is retired and on a limited income. My sister and I are trying to design a garden that is low maintenance (as sis and nephew will be doing all the yardwork!) but also provide mom with a nice view :o)
We want to get rid of all the grass so there is nothing to have to mow.....
Here are photos of the front yard area
Thanks, Anjl
This message was edited Mar 26, 2008 10:23 PM
And another angle.....
They have recently pulled out some junipers and other shrubs that the previous owners left.
Again, we are looking for low maintenance maybe a few flowers, shrubs and ground cover? possibly a tree that is on smaller side (12'-15')
This message was edited Mar 26, 2008 10:24 PM
Anjl,
Welcome to the PNW forum! I live about 20 minutes north of Rochester in Olympia. Here are a few ideas:
Rhododendron yakushimanum are a nice small rhodie (2-3 feet in height) and you can buy them for about $6 to $10 dollars each at local nurseries.
Japanese Barberry, Berberis thunbergii - I love 'Aurea' and 'Gold Ring' together.
I also love Boxleaf Honeysuckle, Lonicera nitida- I have several different cultivars.
For groundcover Creeping Thyme, hymus polytrichus subsp. britannicus smells wonderful when you walk on it and gets darling little purple flowers.
O.K. gang help me out here :0) Rachel
Thanks Rachel... and you probably live right near my sis... she is in Olympia, but the town name used to be called 'Gate'? dont know why they changed it....
I just got a text from my mom (hi tech granny huh?! lol!) and she says the front yard faces north and gets alot of sun (didnt know they had a sun there!) and the backyard is shaded by tall pines... I'm not even going to think about the back yard until I can get up there and take a better look at it. For right now, the front yard is kinda the eyesore, as they have just ripped out all the stuff that was there.
I am a bigtime vine person... so I thought it would be neat to have a arbor and vine growing right near her lil entry deck.... but that may need constant upkeep to keep it tamed?
This really is challenging to me... designing from afar...relaying it all to my sis (who knows nada about gardening) and trying to describe it all to mom.... hmmm! lol!
Okay, I just had a long conversation with mom and here is her ideas....
She wants a JM -will this survive in north facing yard?
she also wants small shrubs, under 3 ft.
She doesnt want anything that drops alot of leaves/flowers. as she cant do the clean up and doesnt want to slip on leaves, etc.
She likes the idea of thyme mentioned above-as ground cover...
we also discussed maybe a dry creek bed diagonally across the yard, could serve as gutter runoff as well as decorative.
Still has a whole backyard to do as well. but everyone is in agreement that all of the grass must go, mom has allergies and cant mow a lawn, sister has 18 acres of her own to deal with :o) so a low maintenance plan is definitely needed.
Anjil,
Your mom is lucky to have the help of the PNWer's!! They are all great!
Hi Anjil! I live north and one zone ahead but there lots of cool shrubs she could do for real cheap. A great filler by a dry rock bed is heather and is real cheap right now. Stonecrop looks real nice that way also. How about an Arbutus unedo for a tree? Evergreen so no leaves and the fruit and flowers at the same time. Got mine for under $20 and is about 3' but will get 15'.
Daphne and edgeworthia are some of my favs for shrubs, and sea holly makes a great show of itself!!
thanks! guess I gotta go to plant files and look up these plants! lol!
I know for a tree, she really, really has her heart set on a JM. She ws down visiting me and was with me when I bought mine, completely fell in love with it! LOL! I have the coral bark...
does anyone know where she can get one in her area relatively cheap? I may just buy her one for her birthday next month...but I cant buy it here because of that moth thing....if you know of a good place for my sis to go get one...that would be great :o)
gonna go search those plant files now :o)
Oh, BTW... her front yard is about 15ft deep and 36 feet wide.
Thanks, Anjil - was going to ask you the yard dimensions. It's hard to find a JM for cheap unless you're checking out the nurseries a lot - and she'd have to get it small. I'd recommend Flowerworld up here for JMs as they have many and they sell small ones, which not all nurseries will do.
I'd recommend including some evergreen shrubs: ilex, camellia (a small one), the smaller pierises, rhododendron, azalea with some native deciduous ones - flowering currant and hamamelis are nice shrubs for spring blossoms and kerria has a nice small late-spring blossom in yellow.
Then intersperse some grasses, ferns, broad-leafed plants like crocosmia and iris with some flowering perennials. I have Shasta daisy I can share and some violets that will readily reseed. I also have some sweet woodruff for groundcover and can donate some Stella d'Oro daylilies to the cause. We'd just have to figure out a way to transport them on our plant "railroad" when you're ready for planting.
Basically, choose several trees/shrubs and then fill in with the smaller plants. Oh . . . and will there be anyone to do annual maintenance, like pruning and deadheading.
Gordon, I couldnt find sea holly on plant files... is there another name for it?
thanks katie.... back to plant files for me! lol!
As for the timeline, I want to try to design it as much as I can from here, gather most of what I will need, and then go up for a week sometime in early summer to do the work. It will be just me doing the work, but I love it so thats not hard :o)
As for maintenance, that will probably be me too! lol! I'll plan on going up there at least once a year until I move up there...so as long as I plant things that need minimal maintenance at least for the first 3 years, I think we will be okay :o)
I also need to keep in mind water costs etc... so may be better to go with low water plants...other than rain water and an occasional watering by sis/mom.....etc.
She also mentioned geraniums... do they grow in that area? I know she loved them when we lived in Los Angeles.... so may want to check into getting her some of those as well.
This message was edited Mar 26, 2008 10:28 PM
Anjl
Ivy geraniums we treat as annuals http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1418/
But the cranesbill are great perennials http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/154/
Bergenia is a great drought tolerant plant and it comes in so many great cultivars now http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/149/
A few native drought tolerant plants (don't buy any of these, I will be happy to share some from my yard if your mom decides that she likes them)
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/121939/
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/56715/
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1161/
Well I better get some sleep now!
Hi anjl! :)
If you put money into anything, put it into the JM. It's worth it to get a quality tree. They are not hard to find here, and generally do extremely well. It's fairly easy to find good shrubs on sale, so save money to put toward a good tree by getting them on sale, or from nice DG-ers like us. :)
Hey Anjil,
If I can get these JRM seedlings to keep growing I'd be happy to share one with your Mom!
HUGS
Tammy
They are about an inch tall at the moment! LOL
You should plan, if you can, on keeping things well-watered during their first year. If you plant in the fall, though, when things are going dormant and the rains, start, that can take care of it for you.
Kathy
Oneanjl - Sea Hollies are known as "Eryngium". They are perennials, although there are biennials, too. They arepretty cast iron - but will not live in constantly wet soil, preferring it on the drier side of the scale.
There are a number of low-growing evergreen shrubs, beyond Rhodies & Azaleas. But those two might need more watering than she is able to do. I will copy the list I posted elsewhere, onto this thread. (If I can remember where!)
try this:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/827064/
This message was edited Mar 26, 2008 6:45 PM
thank you Katie... that was actually my next question... lol!
I will plan on spending a week up there... and wanted to know the best time to do all this work! My sis is going to have a friend come and rototill the front yard a few weeks before I get there. I was thinking it might not be a good thing, to come in mid summer -i know it gets dry there one month of the year...july or august? cant come in early sept as school starts for my son....
so what month do you think would be best? if I go in june, maybe I can get my sis or nephew to stop by and water for a while?
Rachel, thank you, thank you, thank you for all those links! I think she will like the smaller shrubs! Mom doesnt have online access, but she may go to the library this week to log on and look at this thread... she can check the links and then let me know which plants she is interested in. so the links to the plants will actually help her migrate the site a lil easier! lol! she's never been to this site :o) may fall in love with it and then I'll have to buy her a subscription and get her online access! LOL!
Thank you all soo much for all your ideas... keep them coming cause I also will have to redo her back yard too! lol!
She is drawing up a plan on graph paper so I can plan this all out before I get there.
Anjl
Anjl - You might want to have the rototilling done early May. April can be a pretty wet month, but then, most months are...
I don't think you'll want to plant any later than mid-June. If this summer is hot - she will need to water more. Knowing the weather here, I would shoot for planting in late May - early June.
If I plant in late may... will she still need to water in the summer?
Yes - even things planted in October weed to be watered. But if you plant late, the root systems will not have settled in & become established in time for winter. This could result in loss of plants, or stress damage to them. Ideally, September is a great time as the air temps have cooled, but it sounded like this would not work for you.
Watering frequency will ultimately depend on higher temperatures, and what kinds of plants you select. But even Xeric plants need water to become established.
maybe I'll do it in june then and work something out with my sister! lol!
She has 18 acres of her own to contend with, plus helping mom with everything else. but I think if I can get her or my nephew to water for a little while, then in the long run it would be easier for us to take care of her yard for her, and she will be able to enjoy it as well :o)
off to plant files again!
Thank you all for your ideas, this does help alot! (plus I get ideas of plants I will want once I move there! )
Anjl
And don't forget oneanjl, if you make setting up an irrigation system (it can be simple and above-ground) part of the project, then watering may be no more than make sure that the system is turned on for a few minutes in the morning and at night. You can also get timers for this . . .
I have thought of that... timed sprinklers, I just dont know if mom would be able to figure out how to change time etc from season to season... I had a hard enough time trying to program my own! LOL!
I also need to check and make sure she doesnt ALREADY have sprinklers that we may rototill up! lol! It took them a whole year to find her outside water spigot... there may already be sprinklers in the ground, but I doubt it. We may also do one of those rainbird timed irrigation systems, at least for the first few months. I have a few here that I'm not using, so I can just buy more sprinklers and tubing. I just didnt find them very reliable, but maybe it will work for a short term period.
Thank you katie, I was just thinking of that, if you don't want any lawn to mow, after rototilling it make sure you have a plan of where the plants are going then put in the irrigation pipes, They also make above ground drippers, then you need to decide what type of cover you will use, bark, gravel, ect. and a path way so she can enjoy a safe walk around it. I know some one on another forum that has a cad system, I will see if she can help.
Tills
i would love to hear about the cad system... thanks tilly
I'm also worried about pathway, I was thinking some sort of crushed stone so there is no trip hazard. Mom tripped last year and was in ICU for a week... she is still recovering from that fall. we dont want that happening again! Although I will say that the folks at St Peters Hospital are Absolutely WONDERFUL people! My entire family rushed up to be by her side... 5 kids 8 grandkids and spouses... that hospital put us all up in their hotel and fed us while we were there. I was completely amazed at the help and care we all received! I will recommend that hospital to everyone I meet. Wonderful doctors and staff.
I just DMail her we will see if she pops up or sends a mail back to me, I wish I had that progam.
And I know when our Heidi from Dragonfly farms sees this she will have more to say. Shes the best.
O these are differant DGers.
Too deep crushed stone can be kind of hard to walk in - and if your mom at some point got a walker it would be hard. What about a green surface, like thyme or moss?
Your sister will probably visit periodically to check on your mom, right? She can change the sprinkler timing when she visits.
ya, when I mentioned thyme to my mom, she thought that might be a good idea, and she is still very agile right now I'm just thinking future... and it would have to be a very low growing thyme so it doesnt promote tripping hazards?! I was caring for another elderly lady here and as her eyesight started to fail, so did her balance, she would easily trip over a throw rug...
i have some thyme in my yard that is only 3 inches tall, not sure if it was supposed to get taller and doesnt cause we walk on it soo much, or if that is the max height it will get.
yes my sister checks in with mom by phone or visits briefly every few days. But she also works full time and most of the time she doesnt get there til after dark.... i'll have better luck with my nephew! lol!
Mom loves drawing plans out on paper... she should have been an architect in her younger days! lol! once she gets me the graph drawing I'll scan it and post it here. She is drafting up her front and back yards, and going to add shade times so I can get a better feel for what plants should go where.
Anjl- You could even use soaker hoses around the plants that connect to the outside faucet with a timer (this would be inexpensive and easy.)
Looking forward to seeing your mom's plan! Rachel
Hi tilly, thankyou for the dmail. I have no idea what grows up there, but I will keep my I on this thread to see what type of scrubs, plants, etc. oneanjl's Mom chooses when she gets on line at the library. Oneanjl, we need to send her some of our unidentified coleus.LOL Also I will download her photos into my Cad program and start playing around with it. Few suggestions. If your Mom has a water source outside(spicket), would soaker hoses do just as well? She could turn them on when she feels it's necessary, and not have to do anything but turn the knob. The soaker hoses hide well under mulch. Also, other than the Japenese Maple, there is no reason to purchase any plants or anything. We could all be charitable and ship some to your Mom's house when we know when you are going. I have some croscosmia. You need to make a list of what plants will do well there. And anyone with some of what you list, may want to send them , as well as pay the postage. It's alot easier for each of us to pay $10.00, to get that load off your shoulders. And finally, if you register (free) on the Lowes website, they have a designer tool to help you lay out the yard. It's not anything but a flat grid type, but that is what I use to begin a project. I'll be watching. I sure wish my Mom was still here. She had 2 green thumbs and I could sure use her wisdom now. :)
One of my absolute favorite small shrubs, about 3 feet tall and wide, is the Sunshine Blueberry. It is evergreen with blue-green leaves and a bonus of great tasting berries in August. If you put one near the path, the berries would be easy to reach. The grandkids would love it. Just something to consider.
Ditto that St. Peter's has a great set-up for out-of-town relatives of patients. My family stayed at their Sunshine House when my dad was in intensive care for several days. It sure beat the couches in the waiting room where we camped out the first night, and I was sure grateful for the hot shower after a few days in the same clothes I'd been wearing when we left home.
Yes! Sunshine house! That was the name! ... I still send them donations every year, they were wonderful!
Thank you all for all these suggestions... I do have the Better homes and garden cd for designing gardens....but it really isnt all that user friendly! at least not for the grade work I needed to design my yard! I may try to plug moms info into the program and see what comes up... or I'll try that Lowe's site...
Okay...here is the good news! I just bought mom a subscription to DG! her Username is (what else!) Anjlsmom turns out she cant get into the PNW forum without a paid subscription... and I figured for $20 it would make my life alot easier if she can just search all your ideas in plant files and then tell me which ones she likes!
So.... Ive created a welcome mat forum for her at http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/827699/
She is going to walk to the library tomorrow and maybe everyone can give her a nice big DG ((Hug)) warm welcome :o)
Thanks
Anjl
Also... you may notice that a couple of the above posts have been amended....well...mom refuses to admit that she is OLD :o) so I had to take a few comments out! ssshhhh! dont tell her!
And, if anyone does want to donate plants to the cause... I will pay for whatever postage, or even pay for the plants if its cheaper than buying them at a nursery! lol!
You have all been absolutely wonderful and I really appreciate all the help!
Anjl
When I said "above-ground" irrigation system, I did mean soaker hoases. They work well and you can change locations if you need to. IMO there's no need to spend the money on an underground system.
There are different thymes, some may be lower than others. But there are other "ground covers" that may work better than thyme. I'm just thinking of something that won't be hard to walk on, but will be soft and flat.
And it'll be fun to welcome your mom - planning this should be a fun project. Great idea to get her on board. :-)
I am sure she will love this site once she gets on here.... and finds out there is a quilting forum LOL!
Hoping my sis will also see the site and sign up... she raises peacock and button quial and chickens and...and...and.... lol! I'm sure she would love it too... :o)
Anjl
Hard not to. It's surely addictive. Even when one should be going to bed . . .
Welcome Anjlsmom! We have been chatting about ideas for your yard and having a great time! Looking forward to you joining this group of crazy, webbed toed Pacific Northwesterners. Rachel
Well...my daughter is determined to get me interested in gardening. I love beautiful gardens, just don't have the stamina to keep up with it this year. Sounds like she plans on coming up here this year and planting one for me. Maybe that will motivate me. Hope so.
I love this weather, even the snow I woke up to this morning.
Talk with you later
Thanks for posting, Anjlsmom!! I'll bet it's a little intimidating, but we really are a nice group and just want to help. We can be nutty about our plants, so you'll hear about all sorts of things you didn't know about before.
And we in the Pacific Northwest Group also digress a lot, so don't be afraid to do the same.
You'll see some abbrevations used -
DD, DW, DH, DS, DB, DS, DM, DF - Dear daugher, wife, husband, son, brother, sister, mother, father
SIL, BIL - sister-in-law, brother-in-law
ROFL, LOL - rolling on the floor laughing, laugh out loud
TTYL - talk to you later
:-) - sideways smiley face
;-) - sideways smiley face winking
:-o - sideways startled face
:-p - sidways face sticking tongue out
There are lots more, but fortunately we're a bunch of not-so-younguns, so we're limited in what we've adopted from the texting generations.
So where were you before moving to Rochester?
Kathy
