P&N—-Apex, May 2020
This project was a simple front bed revamp! They wanted to increase their curb appeal to their newly installed front beds. They had a two-tiered front bed on the right, and a heavily sloping bed that lead to a full shade bed on the left side. Their only requirements were that it had to be extremely low-maintenance and pretty!
Beginning Photos
Proposed Designs
I wanted the house to feel balanced when looking at it from the road. Since the bed lengths on both sides of the house were almost equivalent, I wanted to make the door the center focal point. Then, the design would unfold on both sides almost symmetrically.
During the design process, the homeowners decided that they wanted spiraling juniper trees to anchor the bottom of the staircase, weeping cherry trees to place the holly trees, and a weeping Japanese maple to anchor the small driveway bed. To simplify the design, we decided to keep the existing shrubs on the top-tier bed of the right side.
I made sure to select a blend of flowering shrubs and perennials. The shrubs chosen would not get bigger than 3 feet by 3 feet at mature growth, and the majority of them would actually only mature at two feet by two feet. This kept pruning to a minimum.
The biggest misconception is that if you have a very shady area, you cannot have color. The piedmont of NC offers numerous amount of options, you just have to go to the right nurseries to find them. You just have to make sure that you don’t put the same color of leaves adjacent so that each plant has its own visibility.
Finished Design
Plant List
- Spiral Juniper Topiary
- Hydrangea ‘Everlasting Revolution’
- Spirea ‘Double Doozie’
- Gardenia ‘Dwarf Radicans’
- Hemerocallis ‘Happy Returns’
- Salvia ‘New Dimension’
- Anemone ‘Pretty Lady’
- Pulmonaria ‘Dark Vader’
- Platycodon ‘Astra Double Blue’
- Hemerocallis ‘Stella D’Oro”
- Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’
- Heuchera ‘Palace Purple’
- Astilbe ‘Astary’
- Heuchera ‘Electric Plum’
- Prunus ‘Snow Fountains’
***The links for each plant are for reference only.***
After Photos
These are after the first implementation of plants. We held off installing the trees until the correct time of year. Therefore, you will see a couple of placeholders. However, overall I think their curb appeal upgraded tremendously!
