Now that my house is, for the most part, decluttered, my yard seems overdone. My borders are full of bushes, flowers, weeds, etc. I'm thinking of pulling out a lot of it and having a simple yard with a few flowers in pots and only have to cut the grass.
Any thoughts on this?
I'a minimalist, but a lush garden is a thing of joy. Start by weeding, and then perhaps think about simplifying your plantings, instead of just getting rid of them. There are border plants that hardly take any care. Find out what works in your area and gradually start reshaping your garden.
OH yeah, and mulch will help you deal with weeds. A load of mulch, spread periodically, will enrich the soil AND smother the weeds AND make your garden look neat
While I agree that a lush garden is a thing of joy, it can also mean a lot of time and hard work, which not everyone finds joyful. I know this because my garden takes up a lot of my time and energy. Every fall, I'm burned out from it all and tempted to get rid of most of it.
The first question to ask yourself is how much time do you want to spend working in your yard excluding mowing the lawn?
Sky, does your community allow you to have a non-lawn yard? Or do you love your lawn?
I hate 'em myself, and much prefer the yards in my city that have been xeriscaped. Less water, less maintenance, more interesting. If I had a yard I would do it mostly as meadow.
I know some communities don't allow you to have natural grasses or wildflowers ... because they might contaminate the pesticide- and herbicide-dependent lawn grass! ... so if we ever buy a house it will be somewhere I can plant what I please.
When we moved we downsized our gardens. We didn't want all the weeding,maintenance, and watering. I miss the beautiful gardens, not the work.
With this house we kept it simple- evergreens, flowering shrubs, larger plantings of the same perennials, trellis with vines, climbing roses,grasses, groundcover.Hardscape, such as large decorative boulders, obelisks- adds interest and uses garden space. We have in-ground irrigation which makes all the difference in the world. If you have to drag hoses, you may want to limit where your beds are. As Zora said, mulch is your friend. Keeping your beds edged also goes a long way to keep them looking neat and tidy.
Go through your gardens and decide what you really love, keep that-possibly divide it and replant if you have enough. Maybe you could relocate the bushes to a garden area you no longer want.
That's such an individual thing.
I have gradually converted most of my back yard and side yards into gardens. They are pretty, but they are also a lot of work. It took me an entire weekend just to spread mulch (and I have a little more to do). And that's considering that there's one entire large garden and one small side-yard garden that have so much groundcover that I don't need to mulch them. (Ivy covers a lot, but it gets invasive and I have to hack it back every so often. I prefer my Sweet Woodruff groundcover.) Even with the mulch, I still have to yank weeds out. And there's always the fall cleanup and spring cleanup. Lots of work. (My best work has been in creating hardscaping -- a brick patio and a dry-stack stone wall. Too bad I can't take those with me when I move. I lurv my stone wall.)
I'm fairly sure that I'll create gardens at my new place, after I move, but I will try for lower-maintenance plants. I might give up on roses -- mine always seem to fall victim to black spot or aphids, or both, because I never remember to spray in time, or often enough.
I'm happy to say that I no longer mow my lawn -- because I hired someone else to do that (as of last summer). *That* is a huge relief to me; I'd much rather work in the gardens than mow the lawn. But you might have the opposite preference. I'd say, go with whatever gives you the biggest feeling of relief.
My house was built in 1945, and everyone who ever lived here stuck something in the dirt. One previous occupant was real ambitious and planted flower beds all around the house and along the fences, and even out in the middle of the yard. It was a mish mosh mess.I didn't do anything with the yard the first year except have it mowed. The second year, my BF now DH and I cut down all the overgrown bushes and planted hydrangeas & hostas in the front flower bed and rose bushes in the back bed. The 3rd year, we did small japanese boxwoods, and this past year, we put in some dwarf nandinas for color in the winter. (Hydrangeas lose their leaves in the winter, bet you knew that, right?)
I just do flower beds in the front & back and they all have to be plants that come back every year because not only am I lazy but I am cheap, too. This year we had alot of rain and Spring was spectacular around here. My hydrangeas are starting to get big and fixing to bloom and I think they will look really pretty, perfect for a little cottage home. I never cared much for gardening before, but it's a nice hobby for a middle-aged woman. My neighbor has a large riding lawnmower and he mows the grass and gets up the leaves in the fall, and it's nice to have the heavy lifting done by someone else. A decent riding lawn mower and a weedeater and a leaf blower set you back @ $2500, not including gas and maintenance, and at $50/mo for 6 mo out of the year to pay him, it would take me 8 years to spend as much paying him, and then the mower would need to be replaced, if it lasted that long. Anyway, this long post is just to say that I spent a lot of time in the beginning getting the yard in shape so I didn't have to keep spending alot of time keeping it in shape. It looks pretty now, and the maintenance is minimal for me. Definitely worth the effort!
we are replanting almost 5 acres and our gardening bill is around $20K per year, what with the plants, the machinery, the labour.
it's obscene, but so was living on a desolate windswept grass hill.
and it won't cost that for ever, i think 2 more years, maximum.
my husband enjoys the physical work and we pay a gardener to come one day a week.
the top half is vegetable and fruit garden with ornamental beds.
the bottom half is going to be solid rainforest, ie no maintenance at all.
i never thought about garden clutter before.
i just want a productive, low-maintenance garden with lots of native to attract a variety of birds and butterflies.
we live in a lush tropical area with an astonishing variety of wildlife....i want to encourage that.
rainforest IS kinda cluttered when you look at it! so many different species all piled on top of one another...but the diversity is the whole point.
I want wild nature outside and calm uncluttered order inside.
however, if i lived alone or didn't have the funds or whatever....i'd have a very simple sort of low low low maintenance garden and i'd pay someone local to design it for me. you can do a lot with a few well-chosen plants and some rocks.
I have issues with yard clutter - the non-plant kind. Spinners, statues, gnomes, ceramic animals, scare crows, banners, flags, etc. etc. I see these things, some of which have been there for years and are broken, faded, and usually over done. A few items can be very attractive but sometimes they are cheap and purchased because they are "cute" and begin to take over.
I don't look at a variety of plants as clutter. Gardens can be a lot of work. There are ways to re-plan and re-plant to reduce the amount of work and I'm all for it, especially if gardening is not your thing. However, if the reward is worth the cost, all is well.
Thank you all for your comments.
I probably should have been more specific. My house was built in 1963 so the yard is well established. I have large borders around my backyard full of azaleas, hydrangeas, dogwood trees, bulbs and ivy ground cover. Around my screened porch there are ferns, lantana, hydrangea and a large fig tree. I have a birdbath with annuals around it and concrete rabbits in the borders. The front yard is mostly formal with azaleas, camellias, nandinas, dogwoods, too many pine and oak trees and a row of knock-out roses by the sidewalk. I don't think it is terrible just a lot to keep up with in my southern, South Carolina heat.
I thought the ivy would choke out weeds but they keep coming up! DH cuts the grass and I do the fertilizing, weeding, pruning, etc.
Seems overwhelming sometimes, especially this time of year.
it just dawned on me ... this is something that a good landscape architect could handle. A bunch of strangers who have never seen your garden are ill-equip;ed for garden design :( A designere could give you a yard that reflected more of your personal aesthetic and reduced the work necessary, perhaps by replacing some of the lawns and borders with patios and walks, container gardens, etc. I've seen redesigns like this in magazines.
The big drawback: a good designer might cost more than you could afford.
I think Zora is right, a designer could probably give you better advice than we could. Some landscape companies have people on staff, might not cost as much as you think. Certainly better than having a garden that takes up more of your time than you'd like.
In the meantime, a thick layer of mulch does a better job of keeping weeds down than ivy.
Our old yard had lots of ivy and I found it a chore to try to pull the weeds out of it. In the mulched areas, the roots tend to grow into the mulch and come out much easier.
Rats love ivy. Just fwiw. In South Carolina, you might do better with pine-straw mulch (my mom used bales of it for decades in Georgia!) or one of the walkable ground covers like creeping thyme, or even moss.
Taking out the ivy, and maybe a couple of the excess trees in front, might do a lot to "unclutter" your yard. Would love to see pictures, it actually sounds lovely.
it does sound lovely!
yes, removal of a free strategic trees might do wonders.
and we are all about the mulch here....we use twenty huge round bales of straw at a time.
lay that stuff thickly over newspapers/cardboard.....and there will be no weeds!
i envy you your hydrangeas....i suspect it is too hot and wet here to grow them, but i am going to try anyway.
they will be a strange anomaly in my aussie natives garden, but i adore them.
and i agree about yard clutter in the form of too much non-plant ornamentation.
one or two large dramatic pieces is all i will want eventually. (i've got my eye on some enormous stone carvings from bali)
at present, i have a fishbowl and a buddha's head and a bird bath and i have resisted all attempts to get me to buy more.
@Sky, your yard/garden sounds lovely, and I can't even imagine the work that goes into it (I'm one of these people who stick sunflower seeds in the balcony flower pots in the spring and then proceeds to do... nothing). I also don't know if hiring a landscape designer is an option for you. To find one, you could ask people whose yard you really love who did their landscaping.
Also, if you're up to it, you could consider sending a precise description, your questions and several pictures of your yard to the folks at ApartmentTherapy.com for the "Good Question" category. I don't know how fast they will publish it, though. Half of the commenters offer great advice, but you will also have to expect a few snobbish "This is ugly, you should just burn it and move" comments ;o) Or, you could just ask them for a good landscape designer in your area.
A few examples from the Good Questions category (if you don't know ApartmentTherapy yet):
* Good Questions: Suggestions for Curb Appeal?
* Good Questions: Suggestions for Narrow Planting Area?
* Good Questions: Improving a Concrete Garden?
* LA Good Questions: Recommended Landscape Designers in LA?
Thanks everyone. My DH and I spent the weekend in the yard. Got a lot of it cleaned up but it was very hot!
You must log in to post. If you do not already have an account, you can register here.
