Thrym's Landscape WIP

[Thrym]

Buglips posted his tid bit about Juntos and that brought to mind that with winter cleared out it's time to prep for summer landscaping.

 

This summer marks the beginning of our second year in this house and we are going to get neck deep in changing the front of our house to something much more pleasing and not so overgrown from the previous owners.

 

Below is a picture of the front of the house taken before we bought the place. My kids and my buddy are busy painting the front porch. Yes, before I owned it we had to paint the porch and the foundation. It saved me about $7,000 on the price of the house in the end so no complaints here.

 

Currently, there are MANY bushes out front surrounded by sun-bleached mulch that house starlings (or a pseudo-sparrow) that feast on box elder bugs living in the walls and/or under the porch out front.

 

 

Once we remove all of that shrubbery, the plan is to place two Dwarf Burning Bushes or Purpleleaf Sand Cherry Bushes (which do something similar to the burning bushes just not as red and hold their color longer) and a mix of two or three flower bushes. Especially my old one if I can find any around here again:

 

 

It's such a cool looking EVERGREEN plant. It's not a typical fir style bush but it stays green all winter. Looks great.

 

Mix those bushes in with some mulch, some wrought iron hangers for hanging plants, a variety of planters, scatter some bird houses about and we should have a rocking front landscape.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2013 by Thrym

[Thrym]

I didn't explicitly state this, but C&C are welcome. Neither of us are landscapers by trade nor do we treat it as a hobby. So if you see something, wrong plant in full light, incorrect opening on a bird house, etc. please let us know.

[buglips*the*goblin]

I don't have much experience with making land look pretty. For the most part, my backyard is divided into two zones:

 

The Part I Mow

 

The Evil Woods Where Mortals Fear To Tread

 

 

And do you know, and I'm not kidding, we once dug a car out of the ground back there? Man, when they built this place they really weren't picky about fill at all. (As I recall it was a 1971 Buick - LeSabre maybe? Huge anyway, whatever it was.) Also a handful of washers and dryers.

[Thrym]

There are more than a few places like that around the outskirts here. Some former "pick-n-pulls" back in the 50s-60s were dozed over and regraded. No mind to any effect the various fluids and rare metals might have on land, water, flora or fauna.

 

So finding a car or household appliances aren't terribly shocking to me. However, given the nature of my small village lot, surrounded on 3 sides by four properties, I don't expect to be digging too much of the land up.

 

Planters were put out front this week and fiancee filled two last night. Pictures later.

 

Time to find my reciprocating saw and get to hacking some bushes. Tomorrow or Sunday? That is the question. Well, tomorrow my pegboard arrives. Looks like Sunday.

[Qwyksilver]

Having had to tear out some of those monstrosity hedge beasts...invest in a good mattock and some Advil. I ended up tearing out 6 the first summer after we bought our house. The hedges had been cut down, but all the roots and stumps were still there, and my wife wanted planting beds.

 

On the plus side, when you are done, you've pretty much tilled the area too

[ShadowRaven]

a mattock, and a set of long handled pruners. They work really good for cutting roots.

[Dilvish the Deliverer]

Having had to tear out some of those monstrosity hedge beasts...invest in a good mattock and some Advil. I ended up tearing out 6 the first summer after we bought our house. The hedges had been cut down, but all the roots and stumps were still there, and my wife wanted planting beds.

 

On the plus side, when you are done, you've pretty much tilled the area too

Or you could got at it the way my parents neighbor did when he pulled the 10 ft diameter bushes dividing their property: a chain, a pickup and a running start.

 

worked pretty well, but he had a beater truck, space to drive and it wasn't near the house. Saved a whole bunch of work though.

[ShadowRaven]

done that with the tractor a time or two.

[Thrym]

My mechanic suggested renting a small excavator/bobcat/similar ... chain and hydraulics for the win.

[SamuraiJack]

I called a tree service and they are charging a stupidly low price ($250) to cut out my junipers and grind down the stumps to nothingness.. the problem with Yews that close to the house is they could have roots into the foundation.. you might call a tree service to come out and give an estimate and ask them some questions about it..

[Thrym]

We're cutting them flat tomorrow. Chainsaw for the win.

 

The boxwood bushes will be cut off at ground level with possible exceptions noted above. The big bush is going to get a trim first. We'll see how it goes. I expect that it will also be toast when it all plays out.

 

My buddy with the chainsaw will also be hauling them away. WOOT!

 

He's a farmer and will mulch the lot and spread them somewhere useful.

 

-------

 

All that said, who has used the "rubber" mulch before?

 

The local Lowes has a sale on the stuff and it comes treated with weed killer. Since we're doing planters out front we're considering that or straight white stones this year.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Thrym

[ShadowRaven]

I personally prefer the look of white stone over the rubber mulch.

[Qwyksilver]

The rubber mulch barely passes the 5 ft test. They use it for the playground for the kids at work, and while it is another great means of recycling old rubber, up close it looks pretty crummy.

[Thrym]

The Chainsaw Master came through yesterday after work and went to town:

 

There were FIVE bushes to the right of the porch. Now there are none. Well, parts of all 9 are left there.

 

 

The big bush turned out nicely. We are considering doing something with a surround of blocks and filling over the base of it. Then the fiancee will plant flowers, etc. around it. Personally, I would like to build a moss garden under it with some cool rocks for it to cover eventually. Maybe some clay pieces that the moss can form over.

 

 

There were three boxwoods behind the big bush. The two right by the porch were visible and the one by the corner of the house was stunted for lack of sunlight and space.

 

 

After shot to compare to the previously posted and annotated shot.

 

 

The Chainsaw Master hauled away about half in his truck before heading home for dinner. It's decorating a tree line now out on the back ... insert large number here.

 

 

The rest will be hauled to the town barn for mulching/composting today/tomorrow.

 

Next, once the rest is hauled out, is to clear the uncovered space of any crap (old pennysavers and wind blown trash) and integrate the old mulch into the dirt.

Edited May 4, 2013 by Thrym

[Thrym]

Jeesh, take a week off and not get a chance to update anything on here and your topic is three pages deep.

Anyway...

The front of the house is cleared. Pics posted. Still in the planning stages as we prep for full on summer.

First, we've bought some cedar plank edging for contrast against the black mulch the fiancee wants to put down.

Example: Specs


Should look good when I put it up this week.

Replacement shrubs. We only managed to look at a few places but in the running are:

• Spirea (labeled "Big Bang") ... this will go between the house and the bush that survived. (about 4-foot round and 2-foot tall)
  
  
• Quince (labeled "Scarlet Storm") ... this will go to the right of the porch (hits about 4-foot tall/round)
  
  
  
• Lena Broom ... this is an evergreen like I had at my old house but sticks to the red we've got with the Quince. (3-foot tall maybe 2-foot wide)
  
  

Several planters and pots were selected but I haven't got pics of those yet. We're going to bury some basic black larger pots for changing out the plants as needed. Put the large pot in the ground, insert a new plant in a smaller pot, move them around as needed.

 

Should look cool. Some really cold weather has halted work at the moment. Hit 32 degrees last night. We covered the small bit we had planted out back and brought in all the pots and planters we have.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Thrym