LANDSCAPING CLASS WK 4 OR 5, MAY 11 OR 18

The week we have landscaping class, we will touch on a number of topics. We can't fix your whole yard or draw a detailed plan in 2 hours. But, we will talk about many of the basic issues most

homeowners share. I will show you how to create a draft of your yard, and the order in which to repair/install. We will discuss turf management from a 'low-input' perspective, less maintenance. Trees and shrubs: the biggest mistakes made with woody plants, is incorrect pruning, wrong time of year, wrong method, or none at all. In the above photo at our home, mother nature did the pruning. Taken after the 8-06 tornado. This photo does not show much damage, but where did the slide go? How about all those patio sets waiting for the wedding guests in 9 days......hmmm.

The last 4 photos in this group of 5 are pre-tornado. Our current landscape has had little repair yet. This photo above was our front courtyard area. You can see just a corner of the solarium where I used to start my transplants. None of this area remains today. This garden was 2 yrs. old in this photo, and 5 years old when destroyed. I prefer to use bark mulch around my shrubs in the landscape. I love the look of stone, but eventually both systems need re-doing and I would rather pitch fork bark then shovel stone. Even using fabrics, as bark decays or erosion blows soil into your rock mulch, both ways will eventually support weed growth on top of the plastic!

This photo shows a very established perennial flower bed, about 5 yrs old.
I love boulders! We had a stone staircase put in made of huge slabs of limestone. That survived the tornado! Using large features like boulders can also add winter interest to the garden. We have used river rock in some of the walkways. This garden area has 3 complete different levels, from top to bottom of steps. I love the cascading plants that creep between the stones. Our location is very exposed to wind, so all of my choices here have to be tough to withstand it. Click on photos to see a larger image.

The 'old house.' This is another garden bed near the former courtyard area. When my husband was excavating for our new road in 2000, he dug up all this limestone. It was likely from an old cistern. He knew when he uncovered it there was going to be trouble. He didn't get the stones re-buried quick enough before I spotted them. These beautiful jewels just waiting to be re-used in a purple flower bed! It worked until a few trees crashed into it. New plans......

When stacking irregular stone besure to line to inside walls with fabric to keep the soil in.

This garden area is along our driveway, about 150 feet of boulder wall and 4 stone staircases. The roundish blue flowered plant in the center of photo is a hardy geranium, "Johnson's Blue." The pink to it's right is a perennial cascading Baby's Breath. The white domes waaay in the back, are hot caps covering small seedlings. Hope you enjoyed seeing some of my landscape photos, can't say it resembles that now! Check out info on side bar for Garden Class information. I have 35 signed up, with only 30 spots left so don't delay if you are interested. Classes are FREE.