Don’t forget to check out the first parts of this series, Garden Makeover - Maintenance-Free & Drought Tolerant? and Part 2 - The Landscape Plan.
They’re baaaack! The happy wanderers finally returned from vacation. It was about time because I was itching to go shopping I mean get moving on their front garden. I had checked stock and prices at my local garden center and both were looking good. They had pyramidal yews for $40. I called J to give her the good news and she gave me the go ahead to pick up the yew. Hooray! The day before my next trip to D & J’s, I went to the garden center to make my purchase. There was just one tiny problem…..I didn’t stop at the pyramidal yew. You know how hard it is to stop shopping at the garden center! When all was said and done, I went home with the following:
2 Yews (1 pyramidal, 1 low and mounded)
2 Threadleaf Cypress
2 Russian Sage
2 White Coneflowers
3 Euonymous
2 White Speedwells
Oops, a couple more than originally planned. You’ve heard of a bed-in-a-bag? Everything you need for making up your bed - sheets, pillow cases, comforter - comes in one bag. Well, this kind of follows the same logic. Everything J needed (and more) for her front garden bed was coming in one car! Rather than phone ahead with this interesting bit of news, I sent her an email, asked her if she was sitting down, then proceeded to give her a little advanced warning of what to expect and stressed that everything was low maintenance and drought-tolerant. Yes, I was too scared to call. But hey, anything she didn’t want, I figured I’d simply bring home again and plant in my own garden, somewhere. It was all on sale and I was gambling on the hope that after all this time, all J really wanted was to have it done. I could justify almost anything. Can you believe all of those items only came to $180. As I always say, I couldn’t afford not to buy it!
I arrived at D and J’s early the following afternoon with the garden bed-in-a-car. The parentals were there, so I knew I’d have help with the planting. We unloaded the car and started setting things in different places in the bed to get an idea of how they would look. After rearranging a few times we had it figured out. J went off to Humber Nurseries to pick up more mulch and my mom and I got to work on the garden bed. The dogwoods would stay put along with an emerald gaiety euonymous and the lilies. We dug up the bleeding hearts that J wanted to keep and replanted them in new spots, removed some ornamental grass that wouldn’t be staying, then began planting some of the new guys. In went the Yews, the Russian Sage, the Threadleaf Cypress, and the Speedwells. We made sure to leave room to put back some of the lilies that I had removed previously. While D and J were away on holidays, I had discovered another emerald gaiety euonymous hiding behind the house. It was brought around front and planted too. Repetition in the garden is a good thing. Ooooh, it was really taking shape!
The final step in this garden makeover was to top up the mulch. We all stood back to admire the results of our planting prowess. Something was missing. It wasn’t the white coneflowers or the sarcoxie euonymous - we’d planted them around the side in the temporary bed - no, what was needed was something more significant. Time to review the results of the shrub search that was discussed in Part 2 - The Landscape Plan. It was also time for me to leave and pick up my boy. Stay tuned - the final, final step is yet to come.
RSS Feeds
