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cowgirl_kitkatt

Planning my landscape

cowgirl_kitkatt
11 years ago

We are about to pay off our house so im ready to get serious about the landscaping. what recommendations do you have for me? I need pretty low maintenance stuff. Don't mind working to get started but i get soo busy things get forgotten.

1st pic is from my backdoor looking back. finally finished our pallet fence and want vines or something to block that neighbor's house (also about 6 or 7 feet till the alley thats ours that id like to do some kind of ground cover we dont have to mow)

By the way please ignore the over grown weeds/grass we bought a lawn mower (used) but havent had a chance to service/use it

Comments (10)

  • cowgirl_kitkatt
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    pic one

  • cowgirl_kitkatt
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Kinda proud of my fence/tables/lounger/wood storage

  • cowgirl_kitkatt
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    now from the old foundation back toward the house.
    Id like to find something that i could grow in the summer to shade this side of the house (south side). Would also like to create an arbor type this over the dog's house for shade too.

  • cowgirl_kitkatt
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Front of the house-north side. put in a cinderblock curb and filled with rose moss (which i love) but looking for something that is a perennial. Think i'll put the rose moss in planters. sad to say the tree at the edge of the picture will have to be removed since it is right in the gas and water lines and not too healthy anyway.

    Theres also about 15 feet along either side of the house (east and west)thinking cannas?

  • OklaMoni
    11 years ago

    I have castor bean plants on the south side of my house. They got HUGE.

    Oh, I also have some in my food wide strip between the house and the drive way, they are healthy there, but the ones on the north side of the house are miserably small, even so they were planted first.

    Moni

    {{gwi:1131772}}

    PS, it got bigger since this picture!

  • cowgirl_kitkatt
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    thats kinda what i was looking at last night for the south side.

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    11 years ago

    It is hard to make too many recommendations for permanent plantings without knowing what kind of soil you have. Is is sandy loam? Sand? Clay? Clayey-rocky? Also, do you have any idea if your soil pH is neutral, acidic or alkaline? There are many plants that grow well in neutral soils, but the lists of plants I'd recommend are very different if you have soil that is very acidic or very alkaline.

    Dawn

  • cowgirl_kitkatt
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    i need to do a soil test it is pretty rocky i know that part and i did save you list you posted early this week (maybe)

  • GeneTheNewGuy
    11 years ago

    Moni, that's a castor bean plant? Wow! It's huge!!!

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    11 years ago

    I've had them get 15' tall in good soil with good irrigation in a decent summer, especially if they were in an area that had just had a large amount of cow manure added to it. When they got that tall, I couldn't pull them out of the ground after they froze, so we cut them off at the ground level with the chain saw, and later in winter after the roots had rotted some, I could pull out the remainder of the in-ground portion of the plant. The main stalk was as big around as my arm. In a really hot dry summer I don't water them enough for them to get as big as Moni's are this year, but they're beautiful even when they are only 4 to 6' tall. I like to mix the green-leaved ones with the red-leaved ones and grow them with cannas and four o'clocks in front of them.

    You do have to cut off the seed heads after they flower and dispose of them very carefully. If saving seeds, you have to be careful and clearly label them as poisonous. Ricin, a very dangerous poison that sometimes is weaponized, comes from the beans of the castor bean plant, which is Ricinus communis.

    I didn't grow castor beans when we lived in a neighborhood with small children living next door and across the street. Once we moved out to the country and didn't have any small children living next door, I planted them almost every summer. I haven't had them the last three years, but that has been because I was cutting back on the area to be watered in the hot summer months. I've missed them too. Nothing else gives you a tropical look more quickly and more easily than they do.

    Dawn

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