The Ugly Duckling – 1 Year Later

Do you remember just how bad it was? The 'warehouse with ample parking meets multiple personality disorder'  house we bought last August??

This blog post(opens in new tab) will refresh your memory, and while a year is a mere blink of an eye in garden terms, there has been significant progress in the front garden and the pool area. The house? Well it looks great inside now – but the exterior is still on the 'to do' list.

Truthfully I was hesitant to share progress – I just couldn't decide when to take photos. I still haven't finished planting the front – maybe I should wait until I'd got those abelia I wanted? Or should have taken photos when more of the blanket flower (Gaillardia) were in bloom? Or…. But I eventually figured you'd look past the grey day and the 'holes' or seed heads. Because this is real life, isn't it?

Here's a recap of the challenges and my design solutions.

Front Garden Challenges

BEFORE: Where am I? A warehouse? Parking lot? How do I get in? Do I even WANT to go in?! Or as I said when I first stood at the top of the driveway "Heck no! That's hideous!

• There was a jig saw puzzle of a driveway that was ultimately too narrow, was riddled with weeds and threatened to trip anyone up who ventured to walk on it 
• There was WAY too much parking!
• The two-story ADU looms over the modest home (can't change that but I could try to at least de-emphasize it)
• The front door was hidden 
• The house numbers were hidden
• A mish-mash of shrubs and self-seeding plants did nothing to frame the home.

Key Re-Design Elements

• Update and expand the narrow driveway
• Update the foundation plantings
• Update the plantings adjacent to our neighbor who generously agreed his 'Charlie Brown' tree should go
• Remove the asphalt in front of the window and add landscaping
• Move the boulder with house numbers to a better location (it was set back by the house – invisible from the road)

Design Solutions Realized & Progress So Far

AFTER: the new pervious paver patio is wide enough to park vehicles and walk to the door without tripping or shuffling sideways. 

The expanded driveway looks amazing, is easy to walk on, is as pervious as the one we removed (as per City code), and knits all the disparate entities (house, ADU, RV parking)  together. It is wide enough to park two vehicles side by side and still walk easily down to the house itself. By laying the pavers in a brick pattern that runs towards the home it pulls the eye from side to side, visually expanding the space and distracting from the tall ADU. (Had we laid the pavers running towards the ADU they would have emphasized its height). 

By removing the overgrown shrubs and conifers adjacent to the house the front door became more evident and the colorful mix of foliage and flowers also helps pull the eye that way.

When our neighbor agreed to take down his cherry tree that had long since past its best, I was thrilled and planted my favorite paperbark maple where we could both enjoy it without it obstructing vehicles or sight lines. This had the added advantage of opening up the view of our house as you approached by car or on foot. No longer did we suddenly see the ADU but rather we saw the new driveway and all the elements (house, RV parking, ADU) at once so it was less jarring.

When I asked our contractor to remove the asphalt we all thought it would be a quick  job. Famous last words. Under the 2" of asphalt was 6" of concrete! This used to be a driveway leading to a carport, later updated to a garage and finally enclosed as our living room some years ago. Yet the driveway remained. So an excavator and lots of hours later it was all finally removed and many yards of new topsoil brought in followed by the installation of the gravel circle which anchored the focal point.

AFTER: the house numbers are now visible while a low fence frames the garden, keeps dogs at bay and yet is transparent enough to be 'friendly'.

Smaller details – although no less work, included moving the huge boulder with the house numbers so it could be seen from the street, then running electricity to it so we could add a spotlight, and adjusting the existing path to the side gate so it lined up with the new driveway.

The fence was a last minute addition, designed on the fly, when we realized we needed to keep neighborhood dogs off the garden (and train their owners). Andy framed the inexpensive laser cut panels in cedar: the fence design has been commented on more than the garden itself!

Planting Highlights

Rozanne geranium weaves casually through a winter daphne.

Ultimately this needs to be deer resistant and drought tolerant. I deliberately chose not to amend the soil with compost, but simply add additional topsoil as necessary. My rationale was that I didn't want to 'baby' my new plants – they had to be tough! Time will tell if that was a good decision or not.

My planting plan evolved when I visited nurseries but the overall color scheme was intended to include shades of blue, yellow and coral. I lean easily towards bold orange but wanted to do something a little different here so the coral tones come from a Coral Charm peony, the new growth of Flaming Silver andromeda (Pieris japonica 'Flaming Silver') and later in the season, Hot Coral coneflowers (Echinacea). As always the aim was to design 'foliage first' and layer flowers into a colorful foliage framework.

What's done well – or hasn't

Blazeaway heather (Calluna vulgaris 'Blazeaway') looking great with Hot Coral coneflowers behind

The border adjacent to the house was the first to be planted and has really taken off well. Everything has flourished and put on new growth. Key shrubs here include the golden Sundance Mexican orange blossom (Choisya ternata 'Sundance'), fragrant delavay osmanthus (Osmanthus delavayi), Tangelo barberry (Berberis t. Tangelo) and winter daphne (Daphne odora 'Aureomarginata'). Additional flowers include  white coneflowers (Echinacea 'Pow Wow White'), Santa Barbara daisy (Erigeron k. 'Profusion'), bigroot geranium (Geranium m. 'Album') plus Rozanne geranium and Japanese forest grass. Tall verbena (Verbena bonariensis) adds  whimsy and I love to see it dancing in the breeze through the window.

Over by the neighbors property, other than a few annual alyssum which didn't make it everything has done nicely. The giant feather reed grass (Stipa gigantea) hasn't bloomed this year but it was expanded well, suggesting good root development so hopefully next year it will. I'm especially pleased with the Blazeaway heather; brick red winter foliage and a lovely golden-peach shade now which is gorgeous next to the Hot Coral coneflowers. They were a late addition and I really like them! I have 5 Arkansas blue star (Amsonia hubrichtii) behind these which are starting to color up – that vignette should look yummy soon.

Young black-eyed Susan and dwarf Russian sage will expand each year but still gave a decent amount of color in year 1.

The main front garden area wraps around a tall, rustic urn. Trying to understand the lighting here wasn't easy. A few things scorched this year (a few of the Japanese forest grass and the fern leaf maple (Acer aconitifolium) that I added to provide filtered screening into the house) but I am hopeful that was more due to our crazy early hot spell in May which hit the new foliage. I think when everything is established these will suffer less in that regard, especially if I can improve the soil to retain more moisture with mulch.

The transplanted weeping Japanese maple has done surprisingly well and the black-eyed Susan babies I dug out of our daughter's garden are also filling in well although they will bloom more effusively next year. The tall verbena has been a show stopper with countless walkers asking me about it.

Against the fence I added Shenandoah switch grass which has done well and has nice color but will be taller next year, and Scentlandia Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica 'Scentlandia') which has settled in nicely and bloomed well.

Beekeeper bluebeard is a dwarf compact for that blooms prolifically and has golden foliage

I've always like bluebeard (Caryopteris spp.) but struggle to overwinter it, so I was thrilled when my good friends at Bloomin' Easy sent me three of their compact, golden leaved variety Beekeeper(opens in new tab) to try. They are in full bloom now and  add so much color to the garden. Plus the bees love them. Fingers crossed!

I added some Rozanne geraniums here as I felt it needed some contrast to all the hot colors. However my impulse buy of blanket flowers (Gaillardia) was somewhat mixed. Some looked ok but others was too orange for here, so they will be worked into the back garden.

Bare spots waiting for inspiration and more plants!

I've got a coupe of bare spots either currently empty or filled with annuals. I'm thinking of adding some abelia to those areas.  Angel's Blush(opens in new tab) variety looks promising with a green and white variegated leaf and compact form. It is also more reliably evergreen than many.

I planted a tall, rustic brown container by the front door, repeating colors and plants from the garden including the golden Mexican orange blossom. It is largely evergreen and helps draw attention to the front door.

A few annuals are used to fill bare spots but will get reworked over the fall.

Ultimately we will remove the 'faux stone' and repair the stucco (replacing it with siding is cost prohibitive), frame the windows then paint. I'd like to do a shade of grey for the walls I think and although I'd originally planned turquoise or teal for the front door I'm now wondering about "sunflower yellow". What do you think? The red-toned roof is a challenge to work with – not sure if light or dark grey would be best?

So there you have it – the ugly duckling is now a toddler with attitude.

I've also started work in the back garden – but that's for another post!