I mentioned a few months back that one of my goals this year is to add year round color and interest to my backyard with evergreen plants and flowering vines and shrubs. One thing I have discovered over the last two years is that once those leaves begin to turn each fall and then remain to be unseen through the winter months, that there is in fact another fabulous thing we get to experience along with our sea of beige in suburbia… and that would be our neighbors. Now, it’s not that I dislike my neighbors.. in fact I truly do… but our house happens to back up to a wonderfully landscaped and well maintained pedestrian path. This means of course that everyone in the neighborhood makes wonderful use of this wonderful space and once those trees are bare, well it feels just a bit like we are on display.
Did I mention my boys, and my dogs, and my husband… all of whom truly dislike to keep a tidy backyard space? Ya… so privacy all the live long year is a critical component for this round of plantings. I mean, we should all be able to choose when we want to entertain and when we don’t, if you get my drift.
Now a girl can’t live surrounded by nothing other than a sea of green, especially when she is coming straight off the heels of such a spectacular sea of beige… so naturally the perfect solution is to add an evergreen privacy screen that is both fast growing and grows quite tall, then pepper that with gorgeous flowering plants that also stick around through the colder days of the year.
For this round of plantings I kept it simple and focused on several English Laurel for privacy and that lush leafy feel and a few of the most gorgeous Orange King Bougainvillea to provide color and interest to that boring beige stone wall. The Laurel will get nearly 30 feet tall and apparently can grow to 30 feet in width too! Can I get a yahoo? When the bougainvillea isn’t in bloom, the leafy vines will still give me that organic something extra to grow along my fence line and provide something special to my vertical space. Oh that Monrovia always does it for me. I have such amazing success with their plants regardless of where I purchase them. The minute I stray, I start to kill things and it’s very, very sad.
I am more than excited to stare lovingly at my lean leafy green privacy screen and can’t tell you how happy I am that I won’t have to watch my neighbors walk by all day long during the winter months… you know, since we haven’t had any rain and are in the midst of a drought, it seems getting outside for fresh air and excersize is fair game all year round. At least now I don’t have to participate… unless I choose to.
So how does your garden grow? Any new faves at your local nursery? Let’s swap ideas! I love a good garden suggestion!!
