I followed your same path. Got tired of the garden looking great in spring and terrible most of the rest of the year, and yes, all the digging and dividing! My garden has become almost entirely conifers and maples now, although I still have one perennial bed for the few treasures I could not bear to part with. You will find you can create a beautiful garden with true year round interest mixing the various colors and textures of conifers.
- Jim

When I had a full sized garden - not the mostly container gardening I do now - I had what are typically termed "mixed borders". These are large planting beds that include deciduous trees, shrubs, conifers, perennials, vines, bulbs and groundcovers. So everyone in the same pot :-)

Like many gardeners, I started out at a young age with mostly flowers, typically perennials and some annuals. As my gardening sophistication and my real estate increased, I broadened my scope considerably to include a lot of trees and shrubs, including conifers - long term interest for minimal input! How one swings the proportions of these plant types in their own garden will depend on personal taste. Obviously by posting here, I think you may be preaching to the conifer choir :-)

My choices came about primarily because of ease of care. With a very complicated and dense garden and little time to spend in it, I focused on plants that would be more or less self-sufficient - low maintenance became the name of the game! And dwarf conifers fit that description to a 'T'.

To boil it down, conifers can play well with any other plants if selected according to scale and with regards to similar growing conditions. It is all a matter of taste but I prefer gardens/landscapes that do not focus on a single type of plant. I like the diversity of structure and growth habits, seasons of interest, texture and color that a wide range of complimentary plant groups can offer.

I started with perennials but once got conifer bug it was all over for the flowers... with a few caveats. I keep a butterfly and hummingbird garden. The other is I use tall summer phlox to shade conifers that need some shade in summer heat like Pinus Chief Joseph. Than in winter when C.J. turns yellow the phlox are gone underground.This is temporary until some spruce I planted get tall enough to provide year around shade.The phlox will be banished to the nether regions.

I have six acres of all woody plants. I allowed them room to all grow in a "park setting" my father calls it.

My first plants were at an apartment from where I worked at a nursery in Portland OR. I had a few tomatoes in pots; A Crocosmia 'Lucifer' in a pot; A yellow Lantana in a pot; And 'Peter Pan' Agapanthus. My first shrub purchase for my next apartment was an escallonia.

After a year of working in the nursery and literally starting with no knowledge & learning annuals and perennials and shrubs and trees and carrying a book at all times, my boss took me aside and we went for a stroll and she asked me what my favorite plant was and I didn't know, but I told her I liked shrubs and trees. She walked me over to a Rhus in fall color and said 'this is a good one' sort of poking me to really pursue my interest in woody plants.

I returned to IL eventually and began another job at a nursery and during my interview I was asked what my favorite tree was and I said Acer griseum - paperbark maple - that was 12 years ago. I still knew the perennials and annuals but they were fillers in my mind to what I "wanted" to accomplish and what I've been doing the last decade +...... a labeled woody plant collection which began at a city residence and (time flies) it's been 6-years now I've lived in the country on my six acres.

Between my garage and sidewalk which is a spot about 25' in distance, my Mom convinced me to (this year) put in a perennial garden. I used to grow trees there. I admit she was right that having some flowers is good. That's as far as I'll go though.

I do grow 500 sunflowers a year to feed the birds all winter, however... it's a crop for me and I do enjoy watching them grow. And, for the past 2 years I've planted mainly fruit trees. Next spring more fruit trees and a 14 variety arbor of grapes is going in.

Space is becoming limited.

Dax

Dax - ever take a look at your place using GOOGLE or BING Maps? Man - That's a lot of plants.

when i moved from suburbia to 5 acres... former horse pasture... and filled every single inch of shade with the 1650 pots of hosta i brought ..

i needed to fill about 4 acres of full sun sand .. so i found trees.. and then figured out that conifers were trees ...

i was highly motivated with conifers.. because the MI hosta society has their collection at hidden lakes gardens.. and they also have the chub harper collection .. so it was very easy for me to see the potential.. IN PERSON ...

and the biggest upside... well two ... after two years ALL TREES ARE FREE RANGE ... read that: CAREFREE .....

and second ... conifers have winter interest.. not that i spend a lot of time going snow blind looking at them .. but its something.. garden like ... in a MI winter ...

trees never stop growing.. so plant a few in the middle of a perennial bed.. and sooner or later.. depending on your choices.. the conifer will take over ...

we can teach you all about it.. if you wish to be enabled ....

refresh my memory.. where are you ..

ken

ps: and as to your title.. yes.. i plant anything i get that will live in sand with little or no watering.. so i do have daylily in the conifer beds ... and some iris ... etc .. nothing foo foo .. and all plants i got a piece from somebody ... no more collections or any such stuff ...

I started off in the plant world as a hired shovel and chief wheelbarrow pusher for a landscape company that was comprised of Japanese Americans. I was the only Caucasian. Great bunch of guys that did a lot of Asian inspired private gardens.
Then I worked a couple of years at a nursery that did landscaping.
The owner had a good eye for design and low maintenance. That's what picked up on. After all, we were doing landscapes for the non gardener.
Garden freaks will do their own garden, and in a lot of cases, good design is a low priority. Perennial gardeners mostly focus on flowers, not structure. Low maintenance and most perennials don't go together.
So, in designing gardens, the structure is considered before the fluff. You have to make the cake before you apply the frosting.
The flowers in my garden are mostly from shrubs; rhododendrons and azaleas. Perennials probably number less than ten. More could be accommodated, I'm sure.
I started with the foundation, and have worked up from there.
Mike

Thanks for all the information from each of you! You all have been such a help. I have spent the last two days tossing perennials. Took a load to the dump today. :) Mike the picture is absolutely beautiful. I LOVE your landscaping! The rhododendrons and azaleas I would love to grow but in Utah they don't do well.

Garden freaks will do their own garden, and in a lot of cases, good design is a low priority.

==>>> hmmm.. should i take that personally ...

lol

ken

LOL, Ken, in your case, I don't think so.
One of the things I like about your design is that you some privacy and you have long shots as seen from your back door area.
My wife named our new kitten Allie. I call her Alee'.
Mike

The photo on Maps or Google Earth is old Marshall last I looked. 3-4 years I believe.

Dax