Shrub removal and replacement

Jeff cut down the gigantic, overgrown juniper at the driveway corner of the front of the house. It was huge and over grown and ugly. He also cut down the umbrella shaped tree in the garden in the middle of the lawn. I don’t know what it was but it never flowered, barely grew many leaves, and its branches were really thick and uncomfortable to duck underneath to weed.

Today we went to the local nursery and bought 3 new shrubs. For the middle of the yard we bought a Dwarf Burning Bush (Fusain aile nain). It is “an excellent compact grower, its brilliant fall colour and dwarf habit makes it a popular shrub in the border of the foundation planting”. I hope it grows well in the middle of the yard. We don’t want a tree there because we’re assuming it is on top of the weeping bed.

In the front of the house, on the driveway side (in front of my office window) we replaced the gigantic juniper with a Silver Spirea (Spiraea nipponica ‘Halwards Silver’) and a really neat little bush called a “Dwarf Hinoka False Cypress”.

We’ve been looking for a bird bath for years now and we finally found what we were looking for – the kind that look like a tree stump with a big ground shallow top to hold the water. We found one and have placed it in the middle garden between the new Burning Bush and the small evergreen shrub that the bunnies have been hiding under (and oddly enough, sitting on top of).

We hope to eventually put a porch all along the front of the house. Probably just 18 inches or so off the ground – not too high. There won’t be an overhang, and hopefully not even a railing. Then we’ll have to dig up our front shrubs. It is probably a plan for next year or the next year. Garage is first!