3 years ago? that shows how long i've been gone! i had no idea. You had quite the place there in IN if i remember right. Lucky tenants.
Today I walked around and took some pictures of what i'm planning. First up, right in front of the house:
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This is the north facing side of the house, and as you can see it's very bare. Dead center in that dead spot was a tree, the previous owner removed it and the stump and left the dirt patch. This gets sun until near noon when a tree starts blocking it, though on the right side of the picture the shade starts a bit sooner and denser due to the garage. The soil needs help, and i'm thinking of adding some ground cover plants and maybe a fargesia to block the garbage cans a bit and make them less obvious and maybe soften that corner of the garage a bit. Maybe a plieoblastus with green or white stripes, it depends what else I want to stick in there. I'm not planning on going 100% bamboo landscape, but i definitely want something other than bare dirt or mulch. I'm not a fan of artificially colored bark mulch.
This patch is also north facing, but gets much more shade from the house. I'd say MAYBE an hour of morning sun.
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I'd like something other than weeds growing along the bare patch. the spot in the sun has no trouble growing, though that tall bush thing is half dead and has to go. If i could get a tall, dense nitida or jiuzhaigou growing there i'd be happy, but probably not possible in this climate. We haven't been below 0 much last 2 winters, but -10 WILL happen. That spot is shaded afternoon, sunny most of the morning.
Next up, the east side of the house:
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Obviously that's a blank slate. there is a tree south of that causing the shade. This was maybe 1 PM? i forget, but obviously the house shades that area in the afternoon. the north side of the house (right side of the picture) has some utilities I can't block, but those are bedroom windows and that sun wakes me up. I wouldn't mind shading them. I would like spectabilis to get more than morning only sun, so maybe clumpers along that wall with some more plants in front of it to break up the monotony of cedar siding.