Have been fortunate enough to own this little fixer upper for a bit…and spent a lot of time traveling and overall ignoring all the problems that need to be fixed – both indoors & outside – for years. She’s tiny and old, but mine for the foreseeable future so I’d love to give her some overdue TLC.
After a rough couple months this year & my doggos recent passing, trying to throw myself into some easier, yet labor intensive projects. Have some things I’m working on inside, but would love any input on how to brighten up the front yard or even the house itself (had red shutters on the window before which I liked). Out west in an arid climate, so there’s really no hope for a crazy lush yard this year, would ultimately love less grass but dont have the bandwidth for a full removal.
by Broad-Ad1482
1 Comment
Oh man! Those shrubs are so pretty and twice the height they should be. I’d try niwaki pruning to attempt to reduce to height of the window sills before giving up and pulling. Once finished flowering follow too long/wide twigs back into the shrub and snip. One by one keeping the natural shape. This is scratchy work, long sleeves and gloves a good idea. I’ve taken shrubs to a 3′ tallx1’deep 2D skeleton and they came back beautifully to the point I didn’t touch them until they were 5×5′ again but the 2 weeks before they showed green was a bit nail biting.
Plan for no lawn but only remove the lawn where shrubs and trees go for now. I’d want a small tree at right corner of house about 1/3 from either street or house to frame it and possibly you’ll want another elsewhere. Don’t plant formally if you have more than one, vary distance from house and have their beds irregular in shape with tree planted off center and larger than you think they need so there’s plenty of room for 1-3′ tall garden plants in there. Continue the line in front of the flowering shrubs to the corner of the house, curving in if that’s too much for you. Use plants that won’t grow higher than the windowsills and plant so when mature they don’t extend under the house’s eaves. Edge the lawn. If you fully intend to continue to expand the plantings and go no lawn then maybe a natural edge [mini trench] would work best here.
Every time inspiration/time/money coincide move the bed borders out and add more or divide existing plants to remove more lawn. Have an idea what the final plan is. I had a difficult time with this and ended up with a meadow surrounded by a path with the existing trees and shrubs surrounding that. I didn’t intend to go no lawn there but persistent drought conditions changed my mind.