I'm a renter living in Rhode Island – USDA Cold Hardiness Zone 7a – and would like to improve the health and look of our yard. As far as I know, there has been no professional landscaping or gardening done here in the past decade at least.
The bushes/shrubs are so overgrown and tall that they look like trees, and quite a few of the trees seem unhealthy. One lost a big branch during the blizzard that hit a couple months ago. The ground is hard and shaded, with very little grass. The trees have vines wrapped around them. Any suggestions are welcome.
Goals:
- for the ground to be something other than just hard dirt which turns into mud in the rain (could be clover or anything that would grow, it doesn't need to be grass)
- for there to be less dense shade / less "overgrown" looking
- for the trees to be healthy
- no more "invasives" such as wisteria and bittersweet which have wrapped around the trees
What I've tried:
- very little overall as i'm not knowledgeable about landscape and daunted by starting. 2 years ago my roommate and I rented a roto-tiller to try and aerate the ground , we seeded some high shade grasses and clover, but it was extremely patchy.
- pruned the wisteria and vines a bit
Pictures:
- backyard full view
- backyard full view
- close up on dirt/patchy grass
- overgrown shrub
- overgrown shrub 2
- close up of overgrown shrub
- tree which seems half dead but still sprouts leaves in the spring. leaned up against makeshift fence from previous tenant (ignore)
- front walkway
by dumb71
2 Comments
If you are a renter, id hesitate about doing 100s of dollars of work to a property you do not own. One stragety that may work is getting a game plan and a timeframe set up, presenting that to your landlord and asking for a part of your rent to be discounted for the materials.
First of all, do you have agreement from your landlord to change the lawn and how much time and money are you going to spend?
> The bushes/shrubs are so overgrown and tall that they look like trees
Then they might be trees now. Tree is not a specific biological classification.
> few of the trees seem unhealthy. One lost a big branch during the blizzard that hit a couple months ago. The ground is hard and shaded, with very little grass. The trees have vines wrapped around them. Any suggestions are welcome.
If you want the trees to look better you could add some compost or fertilizer and prune damaged or bad branches.
For the lawn, you could try a ground cover such as myrtle that works well in partial shade. You could also consider building a raised bed instead.