Front Shrub Bed Makeover

When we moved in, the front shrub bed looked like this:

 People go to garden centers and they find these cute little plants and they mix them, and match them.  They expect them to look pretty much as they are and forget to check the dimensions.  I checked the google maps view of our house.  Two years ago, this enormous sego palm was half the size and fit between two smallish boxwoods.  Now, the sego palm is crowding the bed and it looks ridiculous.  It was also badly damaged by two ice storms this year.

Remember the rule of threes, people!  The former owner seemed to like the idea of ones and twosies. Threes, fives, sevens are the rule when planting.  Try not to plant one plant by his lonesome, unless he is an accent plant.  Twos just look awkward; see the two hollies below:

 Scott spent an entire evening ripping out the sego palm, the two boxwoods and two hollies.  It took him longer because we were trying to salvage the plants for some lucky Craigslist folks who got our discards for free.

We visited the garden center and settled on five Indian Hawthorn shrubs and three 'Purple Pixie' Lorapetalums.  The staggered mass planting of pink flowering shrubs are the hawthorns.  The lorapetalums, used as a border in the front, also bloom pink in early spring.  We have an awkward planting of ranunculus leftover.  It made more sense before we ripped everything out.  These annuals will die in a couple of months and we decided not to disturb them while they bloom.

Scott put a nice fresh layer of mulch on top.  We plan to redo the edging later this year.

Although I don't love the idea of something tall between two windows (I get flashbacks of 50s style design with horribly overgrown junipers between each window.) we decided to leave the trellis and climbing jasmine where they are.  The white blossoms will be beautiful and fragrant before long!

Here is a close up of a lorapetalum:

 

And these gorgeous hawthorne blossoms are my fave:

One of the reasons I chose the hawthorn as my foundation planting is that they are evergreen and have great red and orange fall color.  They may be common in the Southeast but they look hardy and are not common to me.

I kind of freaked out when I realized how bare the design looks.  I keep telling myself it will fill in, it's just gonna take some time.  Most people plant their plants so the design fills in within 1-2 years.  We planted our plants to give them ample room to grow based on their projected dimensions.  This reduces the need for pruning and ensures that our plants will look healthy for years to come.  I can't wait to fill in with a few perennials!

Thank you, Scott, for all of your hard work!  This would not have happened with out you.