Rehabber’s Rehab

I am going to continue my personal vendetta against pine bushes and begin gardening by ripping up the bush in front of the house immediately.  Although I admit, on occasion pine bushes can be done well, in general they are horrible.  Horrible.  People just seem to plant them and and then let them be, until they get scraggly, have no form, dead branches hanging every where.  Just because you plant a pine bush doesn’t mean you never have to take care of it!! Low maintenance is not no maintenance.

After the pine bush is gone, I think that we are going to kill all the grass over the winter and turn the entire front yard into a planting bed.  The yard itself is only about 20 x 7, so half of it is take up by the current planting bed anyway, and I don’t see any point in lugging the lawn mower up front to mow two strips of grass.

So one of the main problems with planting in the front is that it shaded all the time.

There are two large trees in front of the house that block out all hope of light.  This doesn’t help grass growth anyway, so this only reinforces the idea of clearing it all out.    Although I like hostas, I want to plant something other than just hostas in the front.  The main challenge with a shade garden seems to be finding something that blooms or has color.  Since there are not a lot of these plants, another important thing to play with will be texture.  Another point of caution seems to be that many of the plants I like are also poisonous, and in a kid friendly town like Oak Park where you are 6 feet away from your neighbors, this is definitely a no-no.

I am always on the look out for nice native plants, but being a prairie state, Illinois doesn’t have a ton of good ones for the shade.  Some plants that I am thinking about that should work well for our hardiness zone and heat tolerance are:

10 ft. tall, 5 to 8 ft. wide. strawberry-like fragrance to maroon flowers

14 in. tall, 12 in. wide, clumping growth

Tufted mounds 12 in. tall, 12 to 18 in. wide.

16 to 18in. Add to borders and containers.

Fast growth to 4 ft tall and 3 feet wide.

Popular ground covers for shady areas.

Moderate growing to 2 ft. tall, flower spikes 5 ft. tall.

Bright green leaves hold through fall. Perfect for borders

6 ft. tall, leaves take on vibrant beet-red fall color.

Clump forming plant with foliage to 2 ft. tall

Fast growing to about 22 in. tall, 18 in. wide.

A few types of hostas