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Thinking outside the box - Sunday April 28th 2019
Our front garden is a bit of a mess, we haven't done much with it since we moved here, asides from adding some plants and weeding. The two sides of the garden are lined with stacked yellowish brick containers with rooms for plants. The front yard is basically bricked over, except for two spots in the middle of the brickwork where two large, round box (buxus) shrubs stick out. Then there are multiple weeds, growing in between the bricks and through the yellow containers, including grass, and the perennial bindweed (Dutch: haagwinde) which is a pain to control. The garden also included two large containers in between the box shrubs.
Last year we made it work by filling one of the large containers with lavender, the other with thyme and rosemary, and both have done very well. The yellow brick containers on the sides we filled with Scaevola (Dutch: "Waaierplant"), which apparently is from Australia, and it flowerd all the way through the very hot, dry summer. Any space left over I filled with the sedum that was already crawling around the front yard, hoping that would crowd out the bindweed. In the end it looked pretty good with all the flowers.
However, all things good must come to an end, as they say. I did not like the box shrubs from the beginning - both because of the placement and because they are just not my thing. To make matters worse last summer both bushes were ravaged by box tree mot caterpillars. You can already see bits of the box shrubs browning in the picture above from fall 2018.
This spring, we had another round of box tree mot caterpillars - the bushes were teeming with them. What was left of the box shrubs was mostly brown, sticky, caterpillar-silky mess.
So last weekend we finally cut the shrubs down to the bricks. Eventually we'll dig them out completely, probably removing some of the brickwork in the process. Cutting them down was a messy job, but now the box has made room to dream about this little plot of land (now we can start thinking outside of the box. HAHA!).
Puns aside, removing the box has shown me that actually it is a pretty good amount of space to work with. Previously I was thinking of maybe replacing the box with some other flowery shrub, adding a climber on the fence, and thinking of what I could put in the yellow containers for now; my attention mostly going to the back yard. Now however, I'm thinking maybe I will more majorly overhaul the space in the next year or two.
I already thought about a color-scheme for the front yard before, and decided on (bright) yellow, pink, purple and white. The front yard is south-facing, and I think those colors will take on the southern sun with conviction. At this point the front yard is bright, hot and dry. This is also clear from the plants that have been doing well there; scaevola, lavender, mediterranean herbs, and succulents. I will have to take that into account when making my plans, although I might add some shade with a small tree, and could of course improve the soil making it a bit less dry.
In terms of styles, I'm attracted to two arguably different ones: Firstly, I love romantic and cottage style gardens, with lush climbers, roses, cutflowers and wildflowers, blossoming trees... On the other hand, I like the more structural dry/hot gardenstyle with plants that emphasize different textures with grasses, silver and blue/gray shrubs, and larger succulents such as agaves or aloes. In theory both could go well in a south faced garden, so I could pick either, but I think I will try to mash those two styles together. Here is an impression of the planting I'm thinking of - a screenshot of my moodboard (right-click and view image to full view):
I think it would be nice to have a cercis tree (judasboom) in the front left corner. Cercis trees bloom before leaves appear, on both the branches and stem in typically bright pink colors. I thought of having one in the back garden, but it will be hard to place it such that we keep sun on our north facing back yard. In the front here it could be perfect, providing some shade and privacy. I think it would be nice to try to have a climbing rose or jasmin climbing the fence - and possibly the tree - maybe framed with some grasses. Then on the right side more grasses, heath, and pops of flowers, and in the middle, some lower plants with interesting structure such as Agave or other succulents.
However, that's just the current general idea. I'm not an experienced gardener, and maybe these plants will not be very happy together. So I will do some more research on what is possible in terms of the space, what should and shouldn't be happy together, what circumstances they need. For example, will the tree fit, will it add too much shade for the other plants? Using agave is a concern, because they should not really get wet + cold in winter - good luck with that in the Netherlands, huh? I'll give these things more thought in the coming months, then I will make it work with trial and error. The next step will be taking measurements of the space, such that I can make a realistic plan.
