Les Jones

Home Life > Landscaping Update

So barring bad weather or Tennessee One Call breaking a huge promise they've made, LANDSCAPACOLYPSE/LANDSCAPALOOZA/LAWN ORDER: SPECIAL LANDSCAPING UNIT will start this Friday.

The new plan is burning bush instead of Leyland cyprus for the 90 foot hedge between the house and the road. I like the texture of burning bush and the color in the fall. Its height is also more proportional to what I want.

For the 25 foot garden at the east end of the house the plan is still for Smokey Mountains theme garden. Oak leaf hydrangeas under the windows, half a dozen purple rhododendrons, native ferns, and one feature plant in the middle. I'd like for that to be witch hobble, which grows at the highest elevation of the Smokies. If I can't find that, it might wind up being flowering dogwood, probably pruned in an espalier style flush with the house.

I've found something called pencil holly for the edge of the driveway. It's an evergreen, thornless holly that's very thin and tall. It should be perfect for marking the edges of our driveway where it drops off the hill. It's tall enough to see out of a car window or rearview mirror, but narrow enough to fit in some of our narrow planting areas whithout sticking out and scratching cars.

Grass Trivia Bonus! - It's too late in the season to reseed the yard, but I've been reading about it for next fall. I always thought of grass roots as being a couple of inches deep. I just read in one of my books that Kentucky bluegrass can grow roots three or four feet deep. Hard to believe.