A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Landscape trials and triumphs I'm new and need help!

I posted this to the new member forum but perhaps it belongs here.

Hi,

I'm Kate. I'm a new member and a first time gardener.

Unfortunately for me, I've inherited my mother's inability to keep a plant alive. I've killed everything from mini palm trees to cactus!! I've even killed air plants, for Heaven's sake! Just another reason I don't have kids! LOL

But I've owned my house (new when I bought it) for three years in April and haven't planted a single plant. My husband has been at Fort Polk in Louisiana for the past two years while I keep our home going here in TN (near Ft. Campbell). Well maybe it's that he's finally coming home, maybe it's that I just can't stand my empty yard any longer, but I HAVE to do something.

I don't want to garden so much as landscape. I think?
(Is that what you'd call it?) I'm more concerned with making the front yard look presentable. More like a home. We live out in the countryside and have 2.75 acres. Most of it is wooded but unfortunately the house sits in the middle of a total clearing, completely void of anything but prarie grass. My dad visited from California and couldn't stand the barren yard any longer. He planted three cypress trees (I insisted on some evergreens because everything looks so DEAD here in the winter) and four cherry trees. Lucky for him, he has an amazing ability to garden and has always had a dozen fruit trees (even in a small yard in California). Now that he's back in CA, the cypresses look like they're dying (in shock, he says). I'll have to wait until spring to see if the cherry trees survived. The woods are back beyond the backyard so everything is open and barren, right up to the street. I'd like to put bushes/shrubs and trees as a privacy fence/windblock. But I'm not sure what to use.

Also, cost is a big concern. It's a big yard and no one's finances are great right now!

I'm trying to do some research because I don't know the difference between an annual and a perennial! All I know is that I don't want to deal with seeds, bulbs or anything I have to dig up in the winter. I want something that will last year-round. I don't care how beautiful a flower is, if it only blooms for a couple of weeks, I don't want it. lol I need plants that are low-maintenance but will last (even if only in leaf/branch form).

I tried to make a list of desirable plant qualities (feel free to suggest some to me, I am in your debt.) but obviously no plant will fit all of them; they're just what I want to keep in mind.

-Low Maintenance
-Fast growing
-Inexpensive
-Cold Resistant
-Heat Resistant
-Deer Resistant (I can't even count the dozens of deer I find in my yard at all hours of the day and night!!!)

I think flowering shrubs and ornamental grasses are my best bet.

Your thoughts??

I place my inexperienced self in all of your capable and kind hands,

Kate

One major problem that I can see right off the bat is that usually long flowering plants are annuals those are the ones you have to plant every year. One exception to that rule are roses but they aren't low maintenance nor are they particularily cheap. And Deer love roses.

Pampas Grass is a perennial, comming back year after year. The blooms do last a long time. They get really big but it does take some time. And they are not cheap if you start with one large enough to help you with a privacy issue.

I can't think of anything that really fits your needs. I'm sure someone will come along that will have your answer.

Welcome, Kate.
Here is some reading for deer resistant plants.
For economy, find someone who gardens for the love of it. Gardeners share and teach. I was walking down the street one day and stopped to tell a neighbor how lovely her cannas were. She dropped her loppers and ran for a shovel and shared a bunch of cannas and a lot of other things with me. I have been paying forward the favor ever since.
Ask at your local nurseries for advice. They will (might) know what will grow and chase those pesky deer away too.

Adding some info on ornamental grasses.