Gardening ideas...

And done!

That helps a lot. Very nice.

I'll cogitate a bit and be back, have various thoughts tumbling about - including that it looks useful for your neighbor to see the street from their car through where the hole is, re oncoming traffic. On the other hand, neighbor may be able to see just a little further down on the driveway, past the pine....and one shouldn't shoot on out of a driveway anyway. Was it a pine that was in the hole and did that screen their view?

They might also like the sense of enclosure and not seeing the street, not that should decide what you do.

Do you like not seeing so much of their yard, or do you like "borrowing" their yard's landscape...



well, more later.

Without any images to go on, it's a bit difficult to give anything specific in the way of ideas. I'll take a stab at it anyway, and offer up a yew hedge as one. The one shown here screens my backyard from the gaze of four households.

Useful or not ?

Hedge/ blocking is less the idea than something that would be a focal point/ area of interest.

Osso, one thing I didn't get in the pictures is where the sidewalk/ street is -- there is plenty of room at the bottom (nearest the street) for them to be able to see.

It was a pine that was in the hole, yes, different from the other two (which seem to be the same as each other). It was a pretty Christmas-tree-ish pine, quite conical, wide at bottom and narrow at top.

I'm neutral on seeing their yard -- it's mostly that I like the idea of putting something interesting there.

One other thing I thought of, but this is probably down the line and definitely not written in stone, just a stray thought, is to take out the second pine (the most westerly one, which is a bit straggly) and put some of the sun-loving plants I like in that spot. Then it would be (something), healthy pine, sun-loving plants of some kind. (Like lavender!) (Yes, I'm a bit too fixated on the lavender...)

re thinking

Two quick thoughts before any real thinking about garden (am in a cold haze): shrubs next to front door are yews (yes?) and 'pines' under elm are not actually pines, but they are conifers. Not a big difference, but a difference all the same.

neko's image above is a yew, but my shrubs are boxwoods. Conifers, though, that makes sense.

Sorry about cold haze! No rush 'tall.

Osso, I saw your comments last night right before I logged off, forget them exactly but I had scrawled this on a post-it in response (thought of it right after I turned off computer, didn't want to turn in back on):

Part of the point is that I'm learning to think about this stuff. Kind of like cooking or something. "What I would like" is not defined enough yet.

Later, I thought of a better analogy -- fashion. It's like, when I was a teenager and forming my fashion sense, I'd see a very bohemian, artistic woman walk by in flowing skirts, jewelry everywhere, and long loose hair and think "oooh, I like that look!" Then I'd see someone wearing a very minimal outfit, just-right jeans, a black t-shirt, short hair, and I'd think "ooh, I like that look!" Then I'd see someone with an exquisite vintage jacket, skillfully applied makeup, and expensive high heels and think "oooh, I like that look!"

The problem is that they were all a LOOK, and it was partly the cohesiveness that I liked. It wasn't so simple as taking an element from one and tossing it together with another. I had to figure out the parts, figure out HOW to make a look.

So there are lots of different kinds of gardens I like, and lots of plants I like, but I also want the whole to be cohesive. I don't want it to be mostly one way and then one jarring note -- purposeful eclecticism is fine, though, if it's purposeful/ cohesive.

So that's why I like this discussion and not getting just the specific recommendations but the whys -- lavender wouldn't work behind the hydrangeas because it should be something more solid, with more presence, check. That makes sense. Imparts larger lessons, helps things come into focus.

I've just never really gardened before this, have favorite individual plants but haven't tried to plan a whole.

Here neko, I'll leave this for a bit -- view of the "hole" (had a pine in it that died, recently dug it up, wondering what to replace it with/ whether to replace it):

Mostly vinca, some irises peeking into the frame at the far right, conifers in upper left, row of hydrangeas (three) in middle right.

Hi,Soz--
Just had my lunch break from laboring outside shifting plants around (be on the lookout for my report on that) and checked up on you...

The pic was almost how I imagined your situation: a very well-established eighborhood in which a creative yard makeover would require a thick skin. That was after I read your remark on the house being from the 1920s. So, my suggestion for a yew hedge was the most conservative one I could offer.

Here's my idea for the spot shown: a Mugho pine, which can be trained to a bonsai-topiary type ornamental shape ( sculpting is the term used nowadays, I believe ), or left alone, since it'll mature to a compact and attractive landscape feature. It and the Vinca should coexist nicely, and it demands little water after setting fresh roots. I have one , and that's what my plan is for it.

My honest opinion, based on the view your photo presented.

Thanks, neko!

Oh, I DEFINITELY don't want to do a whole yard makeover, no how, no way. What I have in mind starts with deciding whether I want to put another plant in that hole and if so what, and from there is mostly about what annuals I want to plant in various spaces. I don't think I'll do anything more drastic than that for a while.

Meanwhile, I've decided I'm going to go for planting ferns in the (large) space between my two big cottonwoods out back. I think they'd be really happy there. Just spent about 6 hours yesterday clearing out weeds and great gobs of poison ivy, very satisfying. Got a whole entire tamped-down yard bag's worth of the stuff, including entire root systems. Whoo-hoo!

Anyway, that space was taken up by poison ivy mostly (near the Mother of All Poison Ivy vines, may she rest in peace), I like the idea of putting ferns there to fill the breach and propagate.

Hmmmm..... are those yard bags going to be recycled by the town?

A link on mugo pine -
http://www.mnpower.com/treebook/fact68.html

I haven't decided what to do with them yet, but the yard bag was pressed into service just because of its size -- I had been putting them in smaller bags, and I was going through smaller bags too quickly.

Almost certainly not recycled/ to be put out for regular yard waste pick-up, if only because it's too concentrated. (Occasional sprig of poison ivy amongst benign stuff, fine, but poison ivy and nothing but poison ivy, unh-uh.)

E.G. thinks we should double-bag it in a black plastic garbage bag, and toss. I'm still welcoming input on that one. (Already went through it on the main poison ivy thread...)

Soz, good thinking..... I think I'd toss it with the garbage.

Osso, I like mugo pines!

I like them too, and can see them being interesting there - I think. (I should stare harder at the conifers... are they more delicate looking?)
Wonder though, about the matter of shade..
I don't see them around very much, so I am not sure how they do in a fairly shady spot. They are said to be slow, but how slow...

I'm still liking hydrangeas, but still mulling.
The presence of the conifers sort of affects the choice, to me. Wonder about their eventual size.
Want to think of some other plants..
am busy today trying to make my laundry room not look like the first chamber of the house of horrors..

Any thoughts on Astilbe?

http://www.landplanfran.com/page/page/202545.htm

<giggles> good luck with that!

those conifers look thuja-like http://www.fw.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=118

But, don't listen to me, I thought the boxwood (which I nailed by written description) were yews........

Re: eventual size of conifers, I wonder if I should be trimming them? The mugo page, for example (thanks!) talks about how to keep them a reasonable size and shape. My conifers are kind of all over the place, haven't done anything to them in the year we've been here (but they weren't significantly different when we moved in and they'd been receiving expensive crew of gardener ministration...)

I know I've already gotten the point across, but another thing occurred to me with the fashion metaphor. (Bear with me a minute). Say I'm a fashion novice, and I admired an outfit my cousin (who is the same size) was wearing, and she gave me the whole entire thing from shoes to jewelry. But, one of the heels broke, and meanwhile someone has told me that particular pair of heels isn't practical for the um event I'll be wearing the outfit to. So I'm asking, what kind of shoes should I wear with this outfit?

OK y'all get it, I just wanted to get that in...

I'm still liking hydrangeas too, I really want flowers/ color and that feels like it would just go. Any color suggestions? (Current ones are pink, all of them.)

You did nail it!

And yes, good luck with the laundry project, oy.

Astilbe looks gorgeous!! Want it somewhere, fer sure. Didn't realize it was a shade-lover. Liker. Tolerator. Whatever.

Uh oh.

http://www.hydrangeashydrangeas.com/

good site..
very good site..
I find that Michael Dirr book very tempting (I have no idea if they could survive in albuquerque, but sort of doubt it..
Dirr is very good about trees, must be good on hydrangeas.