Just started on my first landscaping project as a homeowner. My wife and I wanted to go from a rock base to a black mulch base. We also removed some of the original plants and replaced them with a hydrangea, 4 hostas, and 3 penstemon barbatus. This area is party shaded about half the day. How did we do? Anything we need to consider now or as they grow?
by jaythejay2000
13 Comments
I think most comments on here will be about not putting any fabric/plastic/weed barrier underneath the mulch. It’ll just cause more headaches down the road and mulch will grow weeds slowly anyhow
For a shady spot, airflow is important. You need at least a foot of space between the house and the plants when they reach mature size so you don’t trap moisture against the wood siding. It’s going to feel silly putting so much space around tiny plants when you first put in a new bed, but you’ll get bigger, better, happier plants if they’re not competing with the structure and each other.
It might look nice if you extended the front border into a rounded shape. You can use annuals for this first couple of years to temporarily fill in the big empty spaces without hampering the perennials.
TBH, I don’t like the plantings in a straight-line, the weedmat or the coloured mulch, but just my opinion.
Uhoh you used weed fabric and will now be shunned
It looks nice. Enjoy it, and every time you look at it take pleasure in knowing that you did it.
Remove the weed fabric and save yourself future self the headache. Otherwise looks good!
Mulch is enough to keep weeds out when nice and thick and you can put cardboard under too. It’s worth ripping that plastic out for your future sanity …everyone is gonna say this. We all learned the hard way it’s a pain and not needed
As someone gardening where the previous owner used weed mat, it’s an absolute nightmare. Plastic strands ripped apart under the bed has made cleaning and replanting a mess. Not to mention the unnecessary plastic where wildlife lives and adding plastic into the environment.
Weedmat definitely diminishes water getting to the roots aside from the many other problems. Rip it out while it’s still easy to.
One of the fun things about gardening is just starting small and learning over time. That way errors are not super costly. So I applaud you.
So this area gets how many hours of sun in summer? Because there’s nowhere in my yard that hydrangeas and hostas will grow together. Also if you have any deer activity there, they love to eat hostas. I plant hostas in the back yard which is fenced in; if I put them in the front, they would be deer food pretty quickly.
I don’t think the bed is large enough for those plants. I’d pull the hydrangea out another foot and make the bed larger. But again, this can be redone someday in the future. I’m hopeful the hydrangea is a type that blooms on new wood, so it can be cut back annually, but they are so pretty left to grow to their full size. Less work that way as well.
One thing I tell all beginners because I wish someone told me: “mature size” on plant labels is somewhat of a lie. Always google for more info on how large they really get. It’s often twice what the label says for trees and shrubs.
People are going to lose their minds over using fabric but it looks great and you did a good job. I used fabric on a similar project 5 years ago and it’s been wonderful.
Weed barrier on r/landscaping ? Straight to jail
First things first… Congratulations first time homeowner!