Planting A Dwarf Pieris Japonica Variagated Tree: a house log

Yup, we have been digging. And my arms are sore. But they do not look like Madonnas yet so it could not have been that bad. We still have a ton of things to do outside, so this is one of those it’ll-take-years-things, and not a ta-da-here is-the-after-by-the-end-of-the-post things, but it is pleasant to focus on one small area at a time to keep from getting overwhelmed (last year we limbed up the magnolia, transplanted/took out a lot of the bushes, and painted the front door). And for this installment of The house team Vs. Wild, we tackled the sad little garden bed to the right of the front porch:

If you look closely, you will see what looks like a rectangular brick patio on the right half of the garden bed, which prevents us from planting anything there. But for reasons of balance, function, and curb appeal it had to go.

So $herdog got her shovel on:

The brick was not mortared together or anything, so it was straightforward sufficient to dig one out and free up the next brick, one by one. It was not exactly swift work or light work (I must have carried 100 bricks to make a neat pile next to the carport) but it was pleasant to start clearing things out. As for what we will do with those bricks, we will either use them somewhere else down the line or craigslist them. We will keep you posted.

Meanwhile John began digging up the liriope on the side of the garden bed right next to the porch as Clara played with all of her friends nearby. No she does not have invisible friends, the girl in fact loves worms. She loves talking to them, waving at them, and crouching down to watch them wiggle. It is weird yet hilarious and adorable. Whenever John or I found them while digging we’d simply gently put them in front of Clara so she could watch them inch by (at this point we were both wearing gloves mind you, $herdog does not palm worms).

The liriope was a beast. Check out this sod-like run of tangled roots he dug up in a strip:

Then we found what we thought was the mother of all worms but in fact was a compact garden snake. So snake alert- do not scroll down and look at John’s comical expression if you have nightmares about those folks. Although, if you are gonna see a snake, this one’s fairly small. John was flashing a smile and I said “look scared” so he gave me one of these:

After about four hours we had our little 13 x 7′ zone stripped down and ready for some actual plant-life (it consistently looks less wide in photos for some reason- likely because I cannot exactly take aerial shots being 5’2″ and all).

It took us a while of hunting around at a bunch of nurseries and places like Home Depot to find two more things to add to this part-shade garden with the otto luyken laurels we planted here. We typically go for a group of the same thing (or at least try to repeat a few things), but we fell in love with the idea of a feathery little maple and a sweet white-flower-covered shrub (which we also planted around our first house’s perimeter) so we simply went for it.

We looked at some red maples but thought they’d blend into the red brick too much (and some would get too big). But this feathery green one (a virdis laceleaf) had us at hello. It is a small dwarf version that is strong for a 7 foot deep bed in front of a house (it will only get 6′ tall, and is frequently recommended for a house’s perimeter since it has a small root base and can easily be trimmed if it crowds the house). We planted it nearly 4′ from the house, so although it looks more cramped in the pics, there is plenty of room for him to fill in.

The small flower-covered bush in the middle is a Dwarf Pieris Japonica Variagated, which only gets to be 2 feet tall and 2 feet wide (so it’ll simply get around 6″ wider on all sides). It is covered in white flowers in the spring and is a fairly leafy shrub for the rest of the time. It also works in part shade like the maple so it simply felt like they were meant to be. And they both have a one year warranty so we have high hopes for their survival.

So yeah, there are plenty of rules of gardening (like “group a bunch of the same type of plants, repeated three or five times since odd numbers are strong”) but in the end our two rules were: 1) pick plants you enjoy – no placeholders allowed and 2) make sure they are right for the spot and that you plant them with the recommended amount of room around them and sun on them – so you do not end up crying over dead plants or having to dig them up to place them more thoughtfully

We remembered doing some yard work in the back yard at our first house and in the first few years we simply picked up whatever was cheapest or seemed like a swift fix instead of truly thinking things through and holding out for stuff we enjoyed. And it either ended up dying because it was wrong for the place we put it or we ended up wishing we had put the money/time towards something we in fact liked a bit more. So we learned our lesson and course corrected simply in time to redo the front yard there, which we truly enjoyed. But back to our planting project. We dug in our new tree and our bush following the directions on the tag (read them! they assist you know how to space them, how big to make the hole, how to break up the roots, what to add to the soil, how frequently to water, etc).

And speaking of spacing, we originally planned to pop two annuals in front while we wait for things to fill in (everything will grow a foot or two over time, but thanks to proper spacing it should not get crazy/crowded). But while we were at the nursery we saw these inexpensive perennials called Garden Variagated Dead Nettle. They only get 6-8″ wide and tall, so they will not overwhelm our little garden- and they should be straightforward to dig up down the line if things fill in and we’d rather move them somewhere else. The strong thing about these little purple flowering folks is that they bloom in the spring and summer year after year (instead of simply for one year and die like annuals). And they work well in part shade. Holla!

Once they were planted and everything was mulched to keep the weeds away (and keep them pleasant and moist between waterings), we were truly glad with our small side garden.

And now for some plant-tastic detail shots. No allergy meds required:

Shucks, they are sweet. All told, it likely took us about seven total hours of work (done sometimes with Clara and her worm friends nearby and sometimes while she napped) to go from raw and bare…

… to this not-grown-in-yet-but-much-better result. But we hope these folks will fill in a bit more and live here for the next few decades, simply doing their thing. So a little work up front will hopefully pay off. We will keep ya posted!

It is funny how much smaller this planting bed looks in the pics. Does not it look 4 feet deep in these shots or something? Meanwhile, all the plants in the back are nearly four feet from the house and the whole bed is 13 feet wide by 7 feet deep. Oh and here is a pointer we learned in our last house from a master gardener: it is consistently good to place things a bit further out from the roof overhang so roots do not mess with your foundation, so runoff does not flood your new plants, and so they get a bit of sun instead of consistently being in the shade of the awning.

Now the plan is to attack the garden on the other side of the porch while Clara’s out there whispering “wooooorms? where the worms go?” We are also starting to plan our big deck project (we called in Miss Utility to make sure there is nothing dangerous in the ground and then need to get a permit). So that is on the docket along with finishing our bathroom and hopefully tackling more Dude Get On That Already things. Ah, spring. It never fails to get us excited to hop from project to project, Easter-bunny style. Speaking of which, what did you folks do this weekend? We got to see a bunch of our family (including Clara’s youngest cousin Ben who is simply six months old) and had a grand old time. Plenty to be thankful for. We owe you a the house Life post about it soon. Hope you folks had the ideal mixture of family, food, and Hands-on lively.