Thank you, Non-winter, you’re so warm, I can keep plants alive and still dig holes. Grand total??? 252. That needs to be more impressive – TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO. My marathon weekend of planting (last weekend) included 84 of the total – 35 of which were trees. Holler. I know, doesn’t sound impressive to those of you in the landscape installation world, but I am me and myself, and since Ben was at work, I needed SOMETHING to keep myself busy. So I dug holes, and my podiatrist is shaking his finger, minding me to wear my sturdiest shoes. Yessir, I did.
We were able to plant 252 plants because of the generosity of one wonderful woman, who didn’t just give us free plants, but gave us a legacy. We have been struggling to finish our landscape, buying a few plants here and there when we could, but not to the extent we wanted to. Priorities. Stink. But are still good. The lovely lady just wants to retire and graciously allowed us to give the plants a home, as winter is (supposedly) coming and she couldn’t bare to see her plants die over winter. So, being willing recipients, we took as many as she would give us!
Enough chitter chatter, here’s some pictures:
First up, basement end of house. Needed more prickly unfriendly things – Dragon lady hollies in the back – ignore the spindly nature, they will plump out beautifully! There are, I swear, forsythia in front of the hollies, and junipers (creeping) form the front edge. Peoples, I cannot tell you how beautiful this will be. I mean, I can, but what’s the fun in that?
Hoogendorn heaven – also known as part of backyard that’s been ignored. The yellow, dying back shrubs behind them are Beautybush – beautiful pink blooms in the spring – (see previous posts) and behind them, which you can’t see because on this particular day it looked like snow the whole day, are more dragon ladies, for screening. (There are three on either side of the American holly).
Dragon ladies beside the existing gorgeous nandina (for even more screening – you know we need some privacy!), and the medium green shrubs are inkberries – so lovely!
And, eventually which be located behind the entire woodpile….once I get my strength back and feel like tackling tree trunk rounds…are the most fantastic Chindo viburnums I’ve seen. I LOVE these plants, and have been wanting to plant viburnums here for the past 3 years. Also, we feel bad that our favorite neighbors have a smashing view of our…woodpile..yay.
I know it looks crazy, but this is one of my favorite views – and once the dragon ladies fill out, you’ll see just a screen of green in the winter, and once we get a chance to prune the seven sons tree (that antler like specimen in the front)…just you wait, Henry Higgins.
In the front, I added abelia, dwarf viburnums, and one umbrella pine, just for Ben. The only pine I’ll ever allow at my house. Keep that in mind, Mr. Shirley.
And another line of hoogendorns around the base of the (still) existing tulip poplar. Helps to ground the line at the top of the hill by the walk (oh design theory and continuation of lines through the landscape! It flows! It reads, and I love it)
And, to balance out the house – we have those steeds hollies (also from our lady) planted earlier, and now they are accompanied by dragon lady hollies. When everything grows up and out, we’ll prune them to read as one green level line around the house. Awesome.
All the plants needed rootball manicuring. That’s the technical name. Kidding, don’t repeat that. Essentially, I needed to whack apart the rootball and “fluff” the roots – so they wouldn’t keep strangling themselves after I plant them.
Tools of the trade:
I needed to slice open the pots, because I couldn’t physically remove most of the plants….not necessarily due to rootboundness….I’m just weak.
Expose the root ball!
FLUFF ze rootball.
Plant. Repeat.
And this shot? This is because I, today, laboriously washed the window in the kitchen, inside and OUT! just to be able to stare at my plants a little more cleanly and directly. And I love my landscape. I can’t wait until spring. Or at least, mulch.
The world of LandStagers 