A Little Planning Goes A Long Way

This home landscape is what we call a 'builders special'.  Meaning, a spec house with little landscape budget being installed with no consideration to proper placement of plant material, only to make the house look good to sell.  Many times I see this over and over, leaving the new unsuspecting home buyer with the task and expense of redoing an ill planned landscape.  This landscape is only 2 years old and about to get out of hand.  Left untrimmed, the yews alone would have covered the entranced to the front door.

 Notice the Japenese Yew and the Knockout Roses by the front entry columns.  Japanese Yews can grow 20 feet tall with equal width.  The Knockout Roses will grow 4 to 5 feet tall and wide.  For some reason, this is a favorite plant to be planted in front of 2 feet wide columns at spec homes.  Also, behind the privets were rows of dwarf yaupon hollies.  We removed the privets to reveal the yaupons.

 We took out the large growing shrubs and planted them in the back yard, so they could grow to their full mature size.

We planted a diamond trellis Yaupon here to allow the client access to their faucet and accent the inset wall.

I Spy...A Pineapple?

Last week when I was making a service call, I spotted this Sago Palm.  It reminded me of a giant pineapple.  Pretty interesting don't you think?

Our Newest Landscape

There's a transformer box under there?

Before - Oleanders screening the box

Those were my words exactly, when a client asked me to redo this bed.  So many times my customers want to conceal the big green box in their yards by screening it with plants.  A couple of things you need to know first before planting around your electrical transformer box.   You need to call 1-800-dig-tess before digging more than 16 inches and you should not block the front by 10 feet and the sides by 3 feet.  I would be very careful when considering digging around a electric box.  We planted 2 gallon dwarf  Sage in this bed along with trailing Lantana, Mulhly Grass, and Harbor Bell Nandina.  In case of emergancies you want the electrical company to be able to get to your electricity.