revised landscape

Here is the revised landscape. The original layout(see previous post) had a row of laurel crossing in front of the house. After planting the row, it looked too confining and was totally blocking the flow of chi. After several replantings and unplantings and making a general mess of the place, I came up with this scheme:



I defined the grass walkway by bushes (I'll probably line with rocks too). Note how the front walkway splits. The branch leading to the driveway is functional, practical, and wide enough to be inviting. The branch leading straight out is needed as a formality to accent the front door and also to allow the flow of chi. The biggest challenge for me was to define space with a ton of mounding shrubs while still making it feel open and inviting.

It doesn't look like much without the special effects wording (thanks to Power Point). Branch to driveway:

Branch straight out:

Area to left of driveway is shown in the next picture. Here I built a shrub garden around the hydrangea that was already there. The climbing rose will go up the hydrangea and should look awesome with roses dangling down (eventually). Summer snowflake are mounding bushes that flower white all summer.

Afternoon sun backlighting sugar maple.......

zoomed out a bit

Preparations for seeding former yew hedge location: To prevent flooding in low spots, I dug four wick drains. These are holes a foot deep filled with rocks to act as a drain. This way, the rain won't turn the low spots mushy. First add cobbles, then put smaller stone on top. The smaller stone will keep top soil from washing into the cobbles.

I'm waiting for Ryan to call and deliver top soil already so I can seed the hedge area. It's $22/cubic yard plus fifty delivery and I need 6 cubic yards.