Yard work...

[DMD123]

Decide to just chat about yard work, lol. Been doing tons of it and have made many recent trips to the nursery for plants. thought I would post some of what Ive been working on.

Redid a space up in front of the hose and kind of made it into a rock garden. Got the concrete fish recently to complete the look.


Added this little thing to my front bed, it is a dwarf that will get like 3 ft... in 10 years!

I think this may be the parent of the little dwarf, lol


This one is one my wife wanted, will take some years to look like much


Have a bloodgood maple to still put in ground and some other stuff but this has been my spring yard projects.

Anyone else doing any interesting yard stuff?

 

[DMD123]

Was going to add this one I just planted in back yard.




A pretty cool looking variegated tree. This one hopefully will fill in a spot where we get a clear shot of the neighbors back door. Will make a nice block and add some interst.

 

[sir_keith]

Ha! My garden and my fish room are two of my favorite hobbies! At the moment my fish room is all torn up because of the ongoing upgrade, but the garden is looking great this year. You seem to like conifers; I do too, as shown below.

The little yellow trees on the left in your third pic (love the little 'Ice Breaker'!) are Chief Joseph Pines (Pinus contorta); here is mine, along with two other conifer specimen trees by my front door. The Chief Joseph gets bright yellow in wintertime-



Another quite different conifer that is yellow/gold year-round is this Louie Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus). (The conifers in pots are volunteers that are on their way to a new home on Bainbridge Island)-



As for a tree that is variegated, with yellow new growth, how about Cryptomeria japonica Sekkan Sugi? This tree was only about a foot tall when I planted it 7 years ago; these cedars grow prodigiously in the PNW-



A different White Pine that is green year-round (on the right). The plant in the foreground is a Double File Viburnum-



And finally (for now), you mentioned planting a Bloodgood Maple; here is one that I planted in 2013, now nearly fully grown and trained-



My fish room gets most of the attention in winter, but in spring/summer it's mostly about the garden!

 

[Madness]

With the cost of lumber being ridiculous as it is, it looks like my Summer projects of building a fence and gate and adding a roof over my deck and to the entrance of the fish room, most likely isn't happening. So bring on the top soil, cedar chips, edging and gravel and fix up the yard.

 

[DMD123]

With the cost of lumber being a ridiculous as it is, it looks like my summer projects of building a fence and gate and adding a roof over my deck and to the entrance of the fish room, most likely isn't happening. So bring in the top soil, cedar chips, edgingand gravel and fix up the yard.

I have about 65 ft of backyard left to fence myself and then the back would be fully fenced. But Im also stuck waiting on lumber prices to go down.

 

[DMD123]

This is the side I need to fence. Thankfully the neighbors garage provides some privacy. This whole side used to be a GIANT laurel hedge. Now just a simple row of plants

Some things got planted just due to size and privacy factors. The large pyramid blue cypress in the corner is an example. It is meant to block out the neighbors. Pretty much the same with the flowering plum.

Planted some things around the lantern in the back today.

Still have to figure out the landscape around the shed to the left of the back yard.


Front yard plants got put in a few years back and are filling in nice. I really am happy with the Japanese black dragon cedar. It looked horrible when it first went in, now its got some size but a bit of a cylinder.

Thats been the busy work keeping me away from the tanks right now

 

[DMD123]

Got almost all my potted nursey plants in the ground now. Still waiting for fence repair to a gate and then I can plant my Bloodgood maple and one small grass.

Moved the maple into a pot until the fence gets repaired. With lumber prices the way they are not sure when this one gets in the ground. This was a rare Walmart find, with kind of a unique twist in the trunk that will look interesting as it grows.

Super excited that I got the 'Silver Show' fir in the ground. This is my favorite of the trees Ive planted.

Love the purple cones on this along with the silver/white needles

The "Silver Show' should get 6ft x 10ft in ten years and will add an interesting element to the yard.

I really wish I would have put trees in a few years back but in 5 years or so the yard will really fill in nicely and look like it was meant to be there. Everything right now is almost the same scale so it looks a bit 'off'. Once the trees become tree sized then the shrubs wont be looking so huge, lol

 

[fishguy1978]

I love maples and have 2 vine, and 3 Japanese out back. I added a contorted filbert last year. We also have a hedge of burning bushes that are interspersed with licals and some other flowering bush. I don't do any real gardening my wife is the primary on landscaping.

 

[DMD123]

I love the maples too. Not sure what variety I have but got a nice one for free some years back that went into the front yard. My brother in law has a lawn service and sometimes finds baby seed starts off trees and brings them home.

My wifes friend has some what I believe to be slight hybrid red/bloodgood maples that she has offed to us. So I do have one backyard spot for it. Will see if I can squeeze it in.

Since hot weather is rolling in, glad to have most of the hard core stuff done. I guess there will always be something to do but for now settled down a bit so I get more tank time again.

 

[sir_keith]

...I really wish I would have put trees in a few years back but in 5 years or so the yard will really fill in nicely and look like it was meant to be there...

That's always the way, isn't it? When I bought my present home 9 years ago they had just finished the reconstruction, and the 'garden' was basically a bunch of plants that had been recently bought at the nursery and stuck in the ground. Lots of work and a few years later it became a proper garden, and it has now matured to the point that my main tasks are cutting back and/or moving things around. Not to mention potting up all the maple, fir, and cedar volunteers that spring up every year, for delivery to my partner who has a large property on Bainbridge Island. A garden is a process!

 

[DMD123]

@sir_keith, Beautiful landscape you have there. Nice mix of trees and plants with good layers happening. My hope is with all our measuring and proper placement that when it all grows in it will have that natural layered look that you have going on.

 

[DMD123]

A couple "Before" shots of the front yard...


Huge rhododendron blocking view from front bedroom window and a huge fir growing next to the house.

This is the "After" of how it looks today. You can just see part of my free maple to the far right.

Front view, now bedroom window gets light and is not so overgrown looking.

 

[sir_keith]

@sir_keith, Beautiful landscape you have there. Nice mix of trees and plants with good layers happening. My hope is with all our measuring and proper placement that when it all grows in it will have that natural layered look that you have going on.

Thank you, but just to be perfectly honest here, a lot of it was trial and error.

 

[sir_keith]

A couple "Before" shots of the front yard...
View attachment 9064
View attachment 9065
Huge rhododendron blocking view from front bedroom window and a huge fir growing next to the house.

This is the "After" of how it looks today. You can just see part of my free maple to the far right.
View attachment 9066
Front view, now bedroom window gets light and is not so overgrown looking.
View attachment 9067

Wow, what a difference! Well done!

 

[DMD123]

Thanks, lots of work over the years but worth it. The home belong to my wife's grandma who passed and it was in dire need of updating and work. We took out so many overgrown trees and plants so even though I wished we could have replanted sooner, the work to get to that point happened as it progressed. With the removal of the big trees came the stump grinding and sometimes that meant finding bits of stump you thought were gone but surprise here is another big chunk. But its all been worth it in the end. No needles on the roof, clean gutters, getting natural light through the windows.

Will update as new things happen to yard.

Still would like to see what others are doing too...

 

[sir_keith]

...Still would like to see what others are doing too...

New sod going into the back yard lawn tomorrow morning-

 

[DMD123]

Looks like a little putting green with a water view...

 

[DMD123]

Had to share this one, notice the large concrete patch towards the front of the picture? Any guesses?
The 3 holes are where metal poles went into the ground, for a Ham radio tower. Not sure how deep the concrete is but the pole holes go down 6 feet. We stuck bamboo rods into those to see. Goal is to take out enough of this to be able to get soil over it and plant grass.

It was interesting that we met the former owner of the house one day, who happened to have been the Ham radio guy and we asked him how deep the concrete was. he didnt answer us and went right on talking about something else, lol. So either he didnt want to say because its really deep or maybe he wasnt listening or didnt hear us.

 

[DMD123]

Here is the "Before" pic of the old rotten shed

 

[DMD123]

Our flowering Thundercloud plum did not do well with all the rain and wind. It busted one of the straps that had it secured to a bamboo support pole and is leaning a bit. I am going to redo the support pole and strapping and start some b-1 vitamins to help with root development. This a a pretty tall tree in a small pot. Then it took off with upper growth this past year and not enough root or trunk thickness to really keep it stable.