Hey everyone!
I'm new on the forum, my hubby has been posting on it for several months for our pup Tika. But i finally got his password so that I could hop on the gardening forums!
This is our first spring in our new home, and I'm very excited to start the garden. the people who owned before us were not strong in the gardening department. They paid for a garden in the front and then sort of let it go to weed. We spent the past 2 weekends clearing out the cedars in front of the house which were getting very large and now we are finally getting ready to put down some topsoil. I will post photos when its planted, for the moment it looks like a tornado hit it. We are removing the woodchips they had down so that the gardens. I am not overly fond of the woodchips, and to top that off, they placed woodchips on top of a rock garden. So we have a lot of raking and shoveling left.
The front yard will be filled with blues and purples in the forms of campanulas and dhalias, a few weejilas and a mock orange.

I have bought some plants in preparation for the garden we will dig in the backyard, but I could use a suggestion for one spot that I cant seem to figure out. In the back yard we are putting in a small veggie garden, a small flower bed in front of our shed, then a larger one that spans the corner of the yard, making a triangle. I planned on having a bush on each corner of the triangle with the back corner being a perrenial hibiscus (which may have died), one corner being a swamp rose (which I was sure would not last the winter, yet somehow has!) and the other was up for grabs. I also have space for at least one bush in the front. I went to a nursury and I picked up a burning bush and a Coppertina.
My idea was to take out the perrenial hibiscus since it really looks dead, move the swamp rose to the frotn yard, and then I wuold have all 3 corners open. I really wanted a magnolia tree and just found one at a local Home Depot. So we sort of wanted to block a nosy neighbours view from the back. putting the Magnolia tree along the back fence, then I have the corner and side fence left to fill. I was thinking to plant the burning bush along the side, leaving the back corner open. I want to put the coppertina closer to the house to hide a stump from a pine tree we removed last year.
The backyard gets a lot of sun during the day and the remaining open space in the corner garden will be filled with hollyhock, gladiolas, a few roses and lined with alysums. Any ideas for something to put in the back corner? I wanted to keep in the red/pink/orange in the back, with white too.


We live in a pretty cold climate, zone 5 I think. where its nice and hot in the summer and REALLY cold in the winter (Canada!) so whatever I put in has to be hardy enough to survive the winter.

All this in mind I have been pretty careful to get plants that are non toxic to animals. We have cats that occasionally venture into the yard, and a lot of bunnies in the area, along with our goofy pup. She has been the reason my hibiscuc died I think, mysteriously it looks like it has bee gnawed on.......

So any good ideas as to a nice bush I can plant in the corner? I would love it to flower, dont really mind what time of year it flowers since I have staggered some plants to have blooms all summer.


THanks for the help (and the forum!)

Kelly

Kelly, welcome to our gardening section
Pictures would be great to really see it. I know all about starting from scratch (check my 2011 thread) were on CO so I tend to buy zone 4-5 and so far the only things not coming back are my lavender and delphiniums (will fix spelling later I'm on my phone) I have an elder bush out front that has done great, gets white flower, just posted pics in my thread.
http://davstott.me.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/IMG_2946.JPG
I love butterfly bushes, so far mine has come back as well as the lilacs.
I know some one has been chewing on my weeping birch in the back but its doing ok.
Ok this is harder then I thought on my phone, I will be back with pictures later...

you could try an spirea for a flowering shrub! I'm also zone 5, and they tend to bloom july- end of august here. There are a LOT of varieties though, so read plant tags about the zone hardiness. Our Lowe's here is HORRIBLE about having non-compatible plants for our zone (Zone 7/8 hardy roses??? COME ON!!!) If you're not stuck on flowers, but like a variation for foliage, you could try a barberry.....ours is yellow in the spring, green in the summer, and turns red and orange in the fall.

Oh I like the Idea of the butterfly bush and the barberry. both seem like colors and style I would like. The Barberry would go great with the burning bush I got, that will turn an incredible color in the fall. I am going to check out a few nursurys in the next few weekends and see what they have.

What size does your Butterfly bush get Jennifer?

i think im in the 3rd summer of the butterfly bush and its growing last summer it was touch and go if it was coming back and it did much later in the spring then this yr, the 1st yr i planted one in the more shady spot and it was a no go. so got a new one and went with a sunny spot. it was about 3ft last yr but i know they can get bigger, we will see this yr if it gets even bigger.

I have a dwarf butterfly bush and my neighbor has a regular butterfly bush. My dwarf has a growth potential of 3 ft I think, but I just planted mine last year so it's still only about 1.5 ft. My neighbor's regular butterfly bush was planted about 3 years ago and it's about 5 ft tall and gets bigger each year. Both mine and my neighbor's are thriving in full sun locations. I lost some that were in poor drainage areas so I moved the sole surviving Bush to a well drained area and it bounced back and continues to do great.

We had to pull my mother's butterfly bush out because it was getting TOO big! Hers would get to over 6ft tall after dying back to the ground each winter. I vote for dwarf.

yeah I think dwarf might be best in that case, its a full sun location so I am pretty sure the growth will be significant. I also have to go take a look at the local nursuries and see what they have. Iam so bummed my hibiscus didnt make it, it was a beautiful bush with dark red flowers. I'll have to figure out a way to keep Tika out of the garden!

So I picked up my magnolia tree this past week and I cant wait until the temperature is warm enough to plant. I also started digging up sod in the back yard but soon ran out of steam. its been sunny but cold here so its not ideal for working in the garden. I snapped a few pics that I will try to post. I was also told to let my hibiscus be for the moment and not dig it out, it seems it might resurrect itself (so says my home depot man). Cant wait to be done! Seeding some flowers inside right now, but its seems my campanulas are not really thriving. my freesia is growing fast though!

Sounds great! My Magnolia is in full bloom right now, loaded with flowers...so pretty!

Aha! Finally got the picture thing figured out!

Here was a pic from last summer of the impossibly huge cedar beside the deck and our awful falling down fence. Along with the enormous pine tree (which was planted up against the house)


Dont mind the mess of wood, we tore down the fence and old pool and put up new ones.


This is the 1 year later version of the same shot. no tree, no cedar and a playful pup.

Here is the giant EMPTY corner which I have spent days digging up sod in to plant my flower bed.


This is my lovely new magnolia tree. which Tika tends to examine and smell quite a lot, hoping she stays away from chewing it once its planted.


Finally, I feel like this happened overnight. walked out to a billion Lillies of the Valley sprouting in the dead zone.


More of the in transition and After shots to follow, cant wait to get stuff in the ground, the risk of frost is still on and we are getting a HUGE soil delivery today.

Definately give your hibiscus more time! Ours die all the way back to the ground every year, and usually don't start poking up new shoots until mid-june. I'm quite jealous of your magnolia! I'd love to have a few, but I can't justify the price right now. And I LOVE lilly of the valley! the ones my mom has did the same thing......we got some rain and hers came up like gangbusters. I'd be tempted to plant some here, but with our sandy soil I'm pretty sure they'd take over everything.

Love Lily of the Valley, I'm so jealous. I tried last year and couldn't get it to grow here unfortunately.

I pulled up my hibiscus this morning because I had to put down fresh soil and it was buried too deep, and the root system was still in the same shape that it was when I planted it last summer. DEAD. so it came out . I think it might be because there was a lot of clay in the area I planted it.
I had a swamp rose which is growing like a weed now.
We got our soil delivered this morning and we spent all day outside with the wheel barrel putting fresh soil in the backyard flower bed and on top of the cedar/soil in front. exhausted doesnt begin to describe. we worked outside all weekend and we are beat, sunburnt and feel rather like we accomplished nothing more than pushing things around. but it will definitely be worth it. We still have the vegetable patch to dig up and lay soil on as well as a few little spots here and there, but that is not going to happen today!
planting weekend in 2 weeks!

Val, the lillies of the valley are really nice, but wow do they spread, I saw a few last year and decided to leave them be since I like them a lot, but then this year, now that the pine tree isnt blocking all the sun, they have multiplied like NUTS! I'll take a pic when they are all in bloom
It is really sandy in the spot they are in, maybe the soil just wasnt right?

gladahmae wrote:

Definately give your hibiscus more time! Ours die all the way back to the ground every year, and usually don't start poking up new shoots until mid-june. I'm quite jealous of your magnolia! I'd love to have a few, but I can't justify the price right now. And I LOVE lilly of the valley! the ones my mom has did the same thing......we got some rain and hers came up like gangbusters. I'd be tempted to plant some here, but with our sandy soil I'm pretty sure they'd take over everything.

OMG- So glad I popped into this thread! The hibiscus is the one I thought didn't make it either! But my neighbor mentioned that might be the case and you confirmed it! Yay! I was wondering too because the roots are pretty solidly in the ground so I was wondering how it could be so dead if there was no way I could pull it out

And is that what those are? Lily of the valley? We had a ton sprout in our side bed in the back. I was hoping they weren't weeds! Cool!

I can't wait to update my thread now!

Tika wrote:

I'll take a pic when they are all in bloom
It is really sandy in the spot they are in, maybe the soil just wasnt right?

Can't wait to see that! Mine were planted in an area that is Sandy but before planting I had dug out the sand and filled the area with top soil. I planted a bunch and not a single one survived. I won't be trying them again. I'll just live vicariously through you.

Get some rest too, just reading about all the work you guys did this weekend is exhausting!

Started getting my plants in a row last evening to figure out waht will be going where this weekend, my Magnolia is blooming a lovely pink and white, and lo and behold, the hibiscus has ressurected!!! I replanted it in its exact spot (but with some good earth) and will let it get as big as it wants, cant wait til its in bloom. Also planted some peonies alone the side of the deck to fill in some dead space, and picked up some flowers for the length of the walkway in the front. We have a long weekend this week and I will be able to get everything in its place, my parents dropped off a tons of cuttings for us from their garden which is always enormous, including 3 spirias, 4 peonies, 2 canna bulbs, 1 weejela, some black eyed susans and 2 clematis. I think if I add that to the gladiola bulbs, dahlias and (hopefully) the hollyhock that I seeded, we will have a nice full (colorful) carden this year!!
I'll post some photos after the planting this weekend!