Thanks so much for the site Snowark. I have bookmarked it and it is INVALUABLE. The backyard is fairly large (for Florida) and is completely enclosed with a 6 or 8 foot high good looking wood fence. The former owner has planted various shrubs around the front and sides which I don't have a particular quarrel with. For some unknown reason he has placed right plunk in the center of the backyard a bed with two bottle brush trees and a banana tree whose leaves or palms dissolve daily. It cuts off the view, shortens the space and makes it very difficult to get the tractor around. I'd love to rip it out and perhaps turn it into a koi pond. I think ripping out those trees will be a massive undertaking and I'm not sure I'm up to it.
Across the back fence he has planted two row of oleander (pink and purple). Along one side is a gorgeous bright red bougenvilla (sp:|?) a scrubby short palm of some type and a small hibiscus. On the other side is a jasmine vine and three hibiscus I just planted. Along the screen that separates the lanai and the pool from the rest of the garden are several non-descript plants including a camellia I planted, two small azaelas (also from me because they were $2.00 each at K-mart and a Tropicana rose 9$4.00 at K-Mart).
What I would like to do is cover the side fences with climbing roses, tall shrubs, canna lilies and so forth and then face down the fences with lower growing perennials. There are some assorted shrubs placed so of helter-skelter in the yard, some of which I'd like to remove, although it tears me apart to destroy a living plant.
Today I bought - a double reddish, peachy camellia which is supposed to get very large, a David Austin heritage rose, a mandevilla vine and a plumbago shrub. The lawn is in terrible shape - according to my neighbors the former owner "loved it to death" - overwatered, overfertilized and cut it too short, too often. I bought some grass plugs to fill in the crabgrass sports, but that was a mistake according to the owner of one nursery I stopped at today. I predict it will take me years.
Ideas and suggestions gratefully accepted.
Across the back fence he has planted two row of oleander (pink and purple). Along one side is a gorgeous bright red bougenvilla (sp:|?) a scrubby short palm of some type and a small hibiscus. On the other side is a jasmine vine and three hibiscus I just planted. Along the screen that separates the lanai and the pool from the rest of the garden are several non-descript plants including a camellia I planted, two small azaelas (also from me because they were $2.00 each at K-mart and a Tropicana rose 9$4.00 at K-Mart).
What I would like to do is cover the side fences with climbing roses, tall shrubs, canna lilies and so forth and then face down the fences with lower growing perennials. There are some assorted shrubs placed so of helter-skelter in the yard, some of which I'd like to remove, although it tears me apart to destroy a living plant.
Today I bought - a double reddish, peachy camellia which is supposed to get very large, a David Austin heritage rose, a mandevilla vine and a plumbago shrub. The lawn is in terrible shape - according to my neighbors the former owner "loved it to death" - overwatered, overfertilized and cut it too short, too often. I bought some grass plugs to fill in the crabgrass sports, but that was a mistake according to the owner of one nursery I stopped at today. I predict it will take me years.
Ideas and suggestions gratefully accepted.
