Learning to landscape

When we purchased our home 28 years ago, the foundation planting consisted of overgrown holly that literally prevented the use of the front steps.  After several years of trying to contain those monster shrubs, I realized that a new landscape plan was definitely in order. 

My first try was barberry because I loved the nearly true red foliage.  This turned out to be a disaster, I just replaced sticky bushes for a thorny ones.  Even though they are semi-evergreen, in my front yard, they were totally deciduous.  For several months each winter, my foundation planting looked like Sleeping Beauty's bramble patch, not very inviting and seriously painful if you happened to bump into them.

It became obvious that I needed to make another try at landscaping the front of my house.  This time, I carefully researched and decided on Ruby Chang loropetalum, red evergreen foliage but without any thorns.  Since my house has two levels, I wanted to create a little vertical interest so I picked out two dwarf crepe myrtles that the tag said would have dark pink flowers and whose height would max out at about 10 feet.

The loropetalum have performed beautifully.  They have filled out the space and require only an annual trim to keep them from growing too tall.  The new growth is dark red and each spring we are treated to masses of bright pink blossoms.

The crepe myrtles have not done so well.  Once again, my choice didn't grow in the manner I had envisioned.  They grew and grew and grew some more until they towered over the house.  At eye level the only part of the shrubs we could see were naked stems.  The shrub on the side of the house grew into a full grown tree, requiring me to carefully keep a section pruned out of the center to accommodate our power lines.  I even tried a version of crepe "murder" in a attempt to return these overgrown monsters back to the dwarf size I was promised.

I finally resigned myself to removing them entirely.  My long-suffering son-in-law, Skip, spent a couple of hours with me yesterday to cut them down.  The landscape looks better already.  I must fight the urge to replace them with anything, although I may propagate one more loropetalum to wrap around the side of the house.

Professional landscape designers use the phrase "right plant, right place" to remind all of us to make sure we think first, then plant.  Maybe someday I will learn my lesson.