Planting Blue Hydrangeas: a house log

It looked sweet when we wrapped up it last year, especially if you ignored the fact that we had plenty of landscaping stuff to attend to behind it. But these days it is looking more like this:

That is a whole lotta ugly going on.

The patio itself still looks strong (and is weed free thanks to this step, while our un-polymeric-sanded cobblestone driveway is covered with them), but the “garden” area behind the patio has never looked worse.

We even learned from the Katherine (the certified landscape designer who lately came over) that some of the trees were diseased and dying (which we in fact heard from the previous owners as well but did not want to believe) along with a big rhododendron bush that was fully dead. Bummers.

So she told us what to prune back, what to keep, and what dead or diseased things we should remove to give the living things a better shot at survival – and make the whole area look a lot less… well, ugly.

So first we took out the two diseased trees that were on their last leg (sniffle) and the fully dead rhododendron. Then we raked up all the leaves so we could in fact see the ground again.

It was certainly a large immediate upgrade. In person the open-ness is truly pleasant. Things were sort of encroaching on the patio a lot when it was all overgrown back there, so now when you walk onto the patio you feel less crowded and worried you will get a stick in the eye.

But we still had some liriope to remove and a whole lot of bare spots that needed some planting (I have been meaning to paint our rain barrel to blend him in a bit more, but who knows how long it’ll take me to get on that…).

The next step was digging out all the random clumps of liriope to make way for some more intentional looking plantings.

So here is the area behind the tree that we cleared to make way for some free bushes.

How does one get free bushes? Well, by transplanting them of course. Yup, it was another suggestion from Katherine The Landscape Gal. She pointed out these were much too big and on top of each other over here…

… so we dug them up…

… and planted the three nandina bushes in a group with the one that was already there next to our giant hydrangeas in the corner. Since one glad little nandina bush was already on this side of the garden, we knew they’d do well over here. And a clump of the same type of plant consistently looks nicer than simply one of ten distinct things hanging out all willy nilly together. Ideally we would have transplanted four of them to end up with a grouping of five since odd numbers seem to work well in gardening, but we were working with what we have. Thankfully they look pleasant in their little pack and will continue to fill in a bit more.

Then we grabbed three new hydrangea bushes from a local nursery (after some price checking, a place called Strong Big Greenhouse had the best deal and also offered a year warranty on them). They are the exact same variety as the ones we already have in the corner – which are doing gangbusters, so we hope these folks will grow pleasant and big and bloom simply as well.

Of course only time will tell, but we will keep you posted. Here is everything all dug in before we mulched the whole bed (which looks excellent by the way- simply forgot to snap photos so we will have to share those in our next landscaping update).

Between all the rain we are getting (and the rain barrel that is pleasant and full from previous storms which comes in handy for stretches of dryness), we are making sure these folks do not give up on us. Oh and in Clara news, she especially loves talking about worms since digging our new plants in prompted us to discover a few (she even said she had a dream about worms the next night).

Sure we still have the corner by the rain barrel to attend to, but we have plans for that. So we will get there, someday! It is certainly a pleasant discernible difference from the mess we were working with a week ago. There is something truly rewarding about landscaping work, although it is bound to get you dirty and sweaty, simply due to the fact that it is such an obvious before and after. Something fairly and green can be found where there were only leaves and weeds the day before.

And the whole area is looking especially cheerful with the trees in bloom too.

Here are things from the other side (yup, Clara truly did make it her job to be in every pic). This shows a few places we still have to work on (the bed near the house could use some smaller-scale greenery and of course we have the whole corner with the rain barrel to tackle)…

… but it is certainly a lot easier on the eyes than this debacle.

It is so crazy to me that the shot above was only taken about a week before the after pic on top of it (see all the buds on the trees that were about to bloom?).

Now they are doing their thing. So fairly.

Here is another before…

… and after.

And another. I cannot assist it.

Ahh, much better.

I truly wish I had snapped mulch pictures because it is even better looking. Oh well, at least the mulch is holding it down and keeping weeds out and moisture in. Yay mulch. Update: Could not resist sharing a Mulched & Fabulous pic, so I ran out and got this for ya:

It is certainly a far cry from the view before:

This next picture is my go-to of the whole lot because I said “Clara, you are in mommy’s picture!” and she squatted and closed her eyes and said “Where’s Clara” as if she were invisible.

Which must run in the family, because it is exactly what her daddy did here.

What can I say? The girl has good hiding genes.

What are you folks planting? Do you have any go-tos? I never thought I’d be buying hydrangeas since they consistently seemed to be out of my skill level (how can something that fairly not be especially high maintenance?) but after 15 months of not killing the existing hydrangeas (which get bigger and more vivid each spring) we chose to go for it. And nandina is consistently a truly straightforward one for us (we had that at our last house and it consistently did well), so here is hoping I did not simply jinx myself. Anyway, I’d enjoy to hear what action is going on outside in the garden or on the porch or wherever else you get your plant on.