Ocean Hill Reno: Garden Restart

About a year ago, we had modest plans to complete our already pretty well established garden with a few shrubs, but one thing led to another and we ended up replanting most of it. We had been looking for peonies and maybe some hydrangeas to fill in a few holes but could never find what we wanted in the quantities we needed.

We decided we would order through a local nursery that also offered design assistance for $100 for a site visit, since the plant prices were the same everywhere. At about that same time, the weeds became overwhelming because the recent birth of a baby meant we no longer had much time for gardening.

The nursery put down cardboard and mulch at the start of winter to combat the weeds. We removed some plants we had inherited to give us a clean slate for the new design, and one side of our fence fell down and had to be replaced. So by the time winter set in, the garden had pretty much been stripped bare except for a few evergreens, our empty raised beds for vegetables and a small lawn.

We told the nursery we were looking for plants we wouldn’t have to water once established. So that meant things that are easy to grow in our climate and that you see everywhere, which was fine with us. The nursery made suggestions for more evergreens and texture we would never have thought of, including a cypress, some low-growing pine bushes, two kinds of grasses (also evergreen), and lamb’s ears. The main flowers are roses, coneflowers, tickweed, yarrow and sedum, with a few sea pinks, lavender and some sage.

Most of it was installed in time for a garden party in mid-May, although we are still searching for just the right rose for one spot. We still have to weed a bit but much less than before. What do you think of how it turned out?

Below, three “before” shots of the garden. The first two were taken in fall 2012 and the third one in June 2013. There are a lot of weeds, although it actually got much worse than this. The white flowers in the foreground on the right side are phlox and the big cloud of small white flowers on the middle right side are wild aster. We also ripped out a prolific red rose. We were sad to see it go but didn’t love the color.

Below, the garden looking pretty empty in March after mulching but before planting.