I don't have any good "before" pictures but you can check out the picture of our house from the top of the page. All you really need is the "after" picture, which is basically the sight that greeted me one day in April when I came home from work.
So anyway, they got to the house before I made it home and got right to work--there was practically no shrub left by the time I arrived. Most of it looked like this:
The plan was to remove the lilac bushes from the back of the house, where they were languishing in the shade, and move them to where the shrub had been. Again, I anticipated a struggle. But my parents made it look easy, uprooting and moving 4 bushes (partially thanks to our neat little garden cart).
Of course I took this picture and then one week later, the azaleas bloomed (and have now since died again). But if you can't tell, there is liriope grass, then azaleas, then a lot of mulch and then lilac bushes. And then space so that I can FINALLY get to the darn hose faucet, which was always so buried in pine shrubs and spider webs.
Given this arrangement, we need to find a nice mid-height flowering thing to go in between the azaleas and the lilacs, so please suggest some hearty things that could go in there.
Clearing the lilac bushes from the back also gave us the space to continue ripping up ivy. We really are slowly taking back our backyard from icky ground cover, but that's a post for another time.
Finally, check out these cool irises! My friend dug some up last fall and gave them to us and they came up beautifully. I love the stiff, precise-looking leaves. Not every one of them flowered though--I assume they're still adjusting to their new habitat.
Hope you all had a lovely Memorial Day!
3 comments:
Thanks for the honorable mention.
So here are a few suggestions for the area near your lilac bushes. One is a Hydrangea, flower looks like a snowball in color. But remember, in order to have it constantly flowering from late spring to early fall you need to remove the snowball flower when it start to die. So the flower regrows.
The other suggestion, which I love is Russian Sage. It is all silver colored branches, that turn a beautiful blue color. No flower, just these really pretty blue colored branches. But absolutely no maintence. Tolorates draught and smells like a sweet sage. Both of these choices of course die in the winter. But they do grow back in the spring.
Lastly, a low holly bush. This way its an evergreen plant. All winter you'll have something alive it that area. In the winter you might actually get red berries that the birds will thank you for.
Now aren't you sorry you asked for suggestions.
I love the way irises smell. Ours didn't last too long this year - and I'll be getting rid of more in the fall, so let me know if you'd like some more!
Can lilac be pruned? Our neighbor's is higher than his roof, and he can't cut the flowers to bring inside anymore.
Here is an answer for ten:
Lilacs can be pruned. The flower grows on old wood. So your neighbor can trim it down all the way this fall, but no flowering for one to two years. Or they can trim some of the branches this fall and some next fall and will get flowers on the branches cut previously.
Hope this helped.
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