We love our little stepping stones we put in, however, we haven't done any planting because we didn't get them in till July - and at that point it's not really worth it to plant flowers since they'll die soon, and the bushes/trees we wanted to wait till fall for so it's not as hot. So now it looks like that except with a lot more weeds...next spring we should have it pretty much done, I think. Any suggestions for good, hardy ground cover to go around the stones??
This is the other side of our driveway. It looked okay this spring, but then the weeds came. HOLY MOLY. I honestly don't remember what it looked like when we moved in a year ago, but I don't think it was quite this bad. We weeded a couple of times but it was completely fruitless, the weeds would grow back in a matter of days. And see those weeds back by the fence? Yeah, they were like 5-6 feet tall.
So this whole area needed to be redone, which is a huge chore because it's all landscaping rocks. (And weeds.) We considered redoing the rocks and putting in new landscaping fabric, but we changed our minds because 1. We hate rocks. 2. We didn't like how it was driveway - rocks - driveway with our neighbors. We wanted something green to soften the look. (Other than weeds.) So we're probably going to do a tree and grass, maybe some bushes too but I don't know yet.
Ew, I get grossed out just looking at that old picture.
This is how it looks right now:
Every morning I try to go out and work on it a bit. Today I shoveled/raked up 4 more wheelbarrows full of rocks, pulled out the last two of the old peony bushes, and pulled out most of one of the huge roots. We're going to hire a tree company to come out and remove the old stump, but the rest of it we should be able to do okay ourselves. We've made a ton of progress, even though sometimes I go out there and just feel sad about how much rock is still mixed in with the dirt!
This is the huge pile of rocks in our back yard that we've moved from the front yard. (It actually looks a lot smaller in the picture.) They will be under our deck, whenever we get around to building it. In other words, we're going to have a big ugly pile of rocks in the back yard for a long time. I really dislike it, but oh well. I'll deal.
I don't know what they are called, but the yellow flowering bushes in my front yard would look nice by your stepping stones. They require almost zero work and they grow well here and were EVERYWHERE in Henderson since they were one of the only things that would grow there without needles. :) They also come in purple. They are bushes, but don't grow very tall. If you don't know what I'm talking about they are behind Mandi in this post http://maniacmonsons.blogspot.com/2014/07/for-mom-m.html. Also, our across-the-street neighbor in Littleton had a little section of yard between them and their neighbors (who own WAY too many cars and have a trashy yard) so he put down mulch and planted three smaller evergreen trees. It looked really pretty. You could even drive by if you were curious to see what I mean. It would give you some privacy, be fairly maintenance free and I really liked the way it looked and I'm not typically a huge fan of evergreen. You could always do something similar with bushes. Both of those would require no mowing and less water. I love working in the yard, but bigger projects can be a total pain. Good luck!!!
ReplyDeleteYes, I love those! I'll have to look into them and find out what they are exactly. I would love to do some evergreens too...I want it to look pretty in the winter too. Hmm. Thanks for the ideas!!
DeleteI love your stepping stones! A few ideas for plants around the stones: Creeping thyme, Irish or Scotch moss, Sedum, Snow-in-Summer (vigorous grower). Here's a website to check out for plant ideas too. Sorry it's not an actual link, but I wasn't sure how to do that on here.
ReplyDeletehttp://wilsonbrosonline.com/Plants/Plant-Files/Perennial-Plants/Perennial-Plants-For-Groundcover-Or-Between-Stepping-Stones.aspx
Thank you so much for the suggestions!! I'll look into those for sure.
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