Hi everyone. I am knew to these boards and I love it. I have been lurking for awhile and now have decided to start my very first thread to pick the brains of those much more knowledgeable than I. I have been gardening about 5 years now. It is pretty hit or miss. We built a new home in the country, I have a large yard, and it is completely overwhelming. I have a bad habit of buying plants because I love them and trying to find a place to stick them later, Anyway, I could use some help and advice on one flowerbed in particular. It sits in front of my house near the driveway. This will be my second time doing this bed. The last couple of years did it in. It was neglected last year because I had a new baby and weeds took over, and it just so happened that the winter before than rodents (bunnies and mice I think) did a number on my perennials. They chewed their roots and killed most of them (any advice on how to solve this problem would also be appreciated but that may need a thread of it's own).
My house is on a hill, so in addition to the heat of the hot KS summer sun, my plants are bombarded with hot, dry wind. The bed I am working is quite large. It is two large round mounds that sit side by side, and can be viewed from all sides. It has excellent soil as my husband saved the sod topsoil when he dug the basement for the house, and then we put that into my beds along with manure and peat moss. My original plan was prairie grasses and prairie plants, but the grasses took over and drown everything else out. I started the grass from seed the first time, and think this time I will use potted plugs so I have better control of the grasses. The bed has been roundup and tilled again this spring, but I did manage to salvage some coneflowers and black-eyed susans. This is a naturalized bed which I plan to fill with native plants and their cousins (ie. coneflower, liatris, black-eyed susans, tickseed, false sunflower, salvias, beebalm), and also russian sage, butterfly bush, and other natural looking shrubs. I will also include grasses for movement, and because I JUST LOVE grasses.
So my question is, how should I anchor these beds. They sit parallel to the driveway and are basically 2 large mounds that come together. The first mound is about 30 ft. wide by 17 ft. deep and the second sits right up against it angled to the back and is just a tad bit smaller, probably more like 17 ft. by 17 ft. A small blue spruce sits of the end of the back mound and a small red bud tree in front of that. The trees are on level lawn. My main question is where should I put some larger shrubs to help fill in and anchore the beds, or should I not (maybe ust use grasses)? Also, what kind of shrubs would look best? I have had excellent luck with weigelas. They seem to thrive on my property. I've also considered ninebark, winterberry, or viburnum. I really do not know where I should put these though. In the middle, towards the back or what. Will the look dumb in the raised mound? I am terrible at the landscape design part. I just can't picture it or draw it, so I usually end up planting and digging up and replanting and killing half of my shrubs in the process. I would love any advice regarding this bed, but really do want to stick with a naturalized bed, nothing formal looking.
Also, I have the exact same type of bed in the middle of my circle drive. I am having the same problem with grass and weeds. What is the best way to kill the grass and weeds, but not the plants I want to keep?
Sorry, about my rambling but I have a tendency to do that! ;-)
Thank you so much for reading my rambling post. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
