A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 My yard & its challenges

When I started moving in, in October of '02, there werent any flower beds. The raised bed thats now my shade garden was there, but the previous owner put in annuals every year. 1/2 of my property is hill, which I dream of with no grass and full of flowers.
Ideas and suggestions are always welcome.

This garden i put in mostly so I could grow something tall to hide the phone pole in the summer. I have canna lillies next to the pole.

This is the shade garden behind the house. The hill is covered in lilacs, lilac babies and honeysuckle bushes. I added the stone circle around the hydrangea and theres some lilies in there too.

There are bleeding hearts, columbine, ferns, astilbe,mallow, yarrow, and various bulbs in there. The wild jewelweed comes up in there too. My hummers love the shade garden!

Ahh, my troublesome hill

Those posts at the top are the border to my up the hill behind me neighbors driveway. The circle of stones is perrenials, that fence on the left is the edge of my veggie garden.

My sunny garden, we've enlarged each spring.



from my front door looking at the hill. the circle to the right is the phone pole garden. I put in the border across the bottom this spring. It end at a fireplace.

Wow how much funnnn!! you could put a mix morning glory moonflower vines up the pole...
maybe clematis up the mail box..
I would try maybe some ivy on the border fence or some climbing roses ... with the posts .... then the hill
you could natralize lilies, cone flowers, daisies, some grasses..day lily,russian sage, hybiscus , orange glory flowers, maden pinks.
Shade you could add some canterburry bells, hosta, chamelion plant, coral bells ..
Sun areas bee balm, roses, ..
that is all I can think off the top

That sunny garden is 1/2 full of bee balm. Cold Z5 here so they dont show much yet. I have some chameleon plant in that dirt spot in front of the stone circle on the hill, didnt know it would do well in the shade. Maybe I'll move some. There are coral bells in the sunny one too. I usually plant a tall annual on the right side which shades them from the summer heat. Last year was cleome and sunflowers.
There are coneflowers, rose campion, poppies & alyssum around the mailbox. I thought a vine hanging over it would be nice too. Maybe something trailing from the planter on the post??
There are 3...or4... clematis on the side of my garage. {I need more pics!}
I would love to put lillies all over the hill, but so would the herds of deer that come through
Do you think morning glories up that phone pole would tangle in the phone lines? I dont want the neighborhood mad at me cause my flowers zapped out their service.
Those posts are abou 2 1/2' tall, no fencing.
Odd you should bring up a fence tho':

this fence, behind my garage is the back edge of my property. Its not my fence. I like the old rickety look of it but I want to plant bird friendly, preferably native, flowering and berry shrubs to soften its look.
another angle

Thanks for all of your great ideas!
I went on a garden tour one year and one girls house had naturalized a field on a hill with conelowers and lillies. It was gorgeous!!

If you want to go natural and bird friendly plant some oregon grape. It makes the greatest jam. It also has the same shape as holly so it's great for making christmas decorations and the birds love having the safety of the holly and the berries. The berries are blue in color.

Thanks! I've never heard of Oregon grape.

purple coneflower and orange daylilies look great together. and both naturalize.

i have some daylilies (i'm moving/splitting what i have) if you want a couple. oh, just looked back...the deer would like them too much...

black-eyed susans reseed, so they would fill that hill up AND they look really nice! there's also a black-eyed susan vine that you could put on that pole or the mailbox...

there are some vines in this thread that you might find interesting.

Just a friendly word of warning - the deer down here love black eyed susies - my friend down the street cannot grow them at all. The only reason I can, is that I learned to put Milorganite around them many times during the growing season - they hate the smell - so do I unfortunately, but it helps me have some flowers.

Deer also absolutely LOVE my purple coneflowers - I have to use Milorganite there too. Do your deer not eat your coneflowers Wrennie?

My deer {{knock on wood}} havent touched my coneflowers. They ate my one tulip that came up. :p I have a cage around my holly or they'd eat that too. I put castor bean plants around my veggie garden so they dont get in there.Also have a short fence. But they do eat the vines that wander beyond the fence & C.B. My perrenials are mostly deer dont like 'em so much varieties. And I try to remember to use bobbex on everything to discourage them. Part of the reason I let the wildflowers/blooming weeds bloom is cause deer dont bother with them. The wild daisies they dont like so they surround the one lilly thats survived in my large bed. I have daffodils in with the other spring bulbs so they get a bad taste if they try to get a mouthful of hyacinth etc. {poor tulip was standing alone}

I'm glad they haven't touched your coneflowers, Wrennie!
The first 2 years that I tried to grow them, I didn't get to see a single flower. Now I have babies coming up (I buried a few seed heads last fall next to the mamma plants and I'm thrilled to see that many babies have germinated!) I am keeping the Milorganite manufacturers in business. Sometimes it's difficult to find in the stores though.

The deer ate right through all the things we sprayed with bobbex a few years ago...

Interesting how our deer have such different palates even though we don't live that far away from each other.

You do know that castor bean plants are highly toxic, right? Just wanted to make sure...

Yup, thats why the deer wont touch them. No little kids or dogs to worry about getting sick. The one outside cat doesnt care about big plants, and I keep seedlings under chicken wire etc to keep her from doing potty and digging things up.

I couldn't imagine having to worry about the deer eating my plants! Just across the other hill there are deer, but they don't come over here. And where my in-laws live 45 minutes away is in the countryside and they have deer EVERYWHERE!!! I'm glad we didn't move out there and build a house now I think about it.

Looks like you have a lot of growing space Wrennie!!! That's great, there are so many possibilities!

I dream of having that whole hill covered in gardens someday. The one in the picture with my truck gets a little bigger every year. My BF says he's going to ask the neighbor if he can rent a parking spot from them 'cause there wont be room for him to park soon!

Who needs to park anyway????

That hillside would lookk so pretty covered with flowrs.....

Added a bit on the troublesome hill.

Now to work UP above the original ring.
BF didnt do the wall the way I asked. He tried to mimmick the curve up on the hill. On the right it connects to the firepit. Now I just need the seedlings to get growing!

Where will Oregon Grape grow? I am in zone 6. (Northern NJ). I can't find a lot of information about them, and am trying to figure out what I can grow on the highly shaded side of my house.

the hill now:
and the 'island':

You have a lot of great ideas wrennie! I moved into my house last summer and the only plants there were hostas so now I am trying to get started on many other plants and flowers. I have received many seeds thanks to the help of a few people from here. I can't wait until next summer. I am trying to get my bf to make a flower bed for me out of stack stone but that hasn't happened yet. I will get him to do it for me eventually. In the meantime, I have to work with the areas that I have. I do need some of them tilled up for me though.

Wow, your gardens are looking fantastic! I can't wait until mine look as full as yours. In the last picture what are the tall red and purple flowers?

Joanne

Those are both Bee balm, aka monarda. Hummingbirds, bumblebees, LOVE it. It's perennial, spreads like crazy in good soil. Its a member of the mint family.

My Garden Phlox Nikki is just starting to bloom too. DArK purple, so cool. {Sil's favorite color is purple & her brother who has passed away is Nikki. A little twilight zone there}I'll add pics later.

cloer upper pic. Its about 3 1/2 feet tall.

Wrennie, the garden is looking great. I love that Bee Balm as well! Very pretty!

Hi Eric zone 6 no problem with growing the oregon grape.

Thanks Wrennie, I had no idea bee balm came in purple as well. Another flower on my wish list... I need to win the lottery so I can afford this new obsession of mine!

Joanne

Very nice Wrennie, colorful

Netwiz I have red, violet and "blue" the blue is really just a darker violet. Since there in lots of peatmoss the purples are hard to tell apart. I've also seen it in pink.
I think either roots and rhizomes or white flower farm (mail orders) has lots of colors.