I need a lot of help with this dark front yard. Soil 7/7b
To preface I am by no means am I an expert in landscaping, landscape architecture, etc.
A neighbor asked if I could help with some landscaping ideas however I’m having a lot of trouble with finding plants suitable for this area.
The front of the house faces north-northeast.
Currently there is a butchered Japanese maple, some old azaleas, a TON of shasta daisies and black eyed Susan’s, maybe a few other random plants like a few bleeding hearts.
I’m having a lot of trouble visualizing and setting anchor plants because right now it looks pretty awful.
Anyone have suggestions for how to give this curb appeal and provide the convenience of perennials?
Edit: Added some compact holly shrubs from Costco but it looks just not that nice … 🙁
by Icy_Mine
1 Comment
The reason those new hollies look awful is because you are doing polka dot planting. Plunking isolated little shrubs into a massive ocean of brown mulch will always look weak against a heavy brick house. You need structure and sweeping masses to ground the building. Stop buying single plants and start planting in connected groupings of five or seven so they flow together into one solid texture. For a north facing Zone 7 bed you want deep green shade lovers holding down the back layer. Think wide sweeps of Plum Yew or Otto Luyken Laurels against the foundation to give you year round bones.
Once you have that solid evergreen backdrop you can layer the front with massive drifts of shade perennials. Pull those random existing plants together into one big clump and surround them with sweeping curves of Autumn Ferns, Hellebores, and large Hostas. That butchered maple needs to be swallowed up by a bright carpet of Hakone grass so it feels anchored to the earth instead of just floating in the dirt. Before you head back to the store and guess on more shrubs you should run your house photo through the GardenDream web app. It is a solid blueprint tool that lets you overlay realistic plant masses onto your exact yard so you can visualize the scale and stop wasting money on disconnected ideas.