After 20 years in our Nashua, NH home, we finally decided to up our game with a renovation of our street-side gardens. In spring 2016, the front foundation beds were completely renovated with the help of Bill Parker of Parker Garden Design. Our goal was an easy-care garden that would enhance curb appeal and set the stage for the rest of The Big Little Garden. Bill’s proposal included a stacked Goshen stone wall along the front of the house. He felt that the house needed stone materials to help anchor it to the steeply sloping front lawn. This was an improvement that we never considered, so it was quite exhilarating to be lead by Bill’s vision!
Our home faces north, so the foundation plantings need to be shade tolerant. Plants just three feet on the other side of the front walkway and atop the new wall need to be able to handle full sun. Bill helped me select choice ornamental trees to create the bones of the gardens. Over time, I added perennials, grasses and groundcovers to soften and spill over the wall.
Here's a chronology of events as the new beds were installed, with some tweaks made along the way.
Landscape renovation, March, 2016
The crew set to work on March 22, battling snow and cold for the first week. To begin, overgrown rhododendrons were removed. A 'Bloodgood' Japanese Maple that we planted way too close to the house 15 years before was relocated a few feet "downhill". A few relatively painless weeks later, we had a gorgeous new stone wall and significantly more room for plant materials (click photos to enlarge):
First Year Plantings, may - june, 2016:
Foundation plantings include our pre-existing, shade tolerant 'Winterthur' Viburnum. This is a lovely specimen and was worth preserving, so we just nudged it slightly to the left to anchor the corner of the planting bed. New specimens include a dwarf Eastern White Pine 'Merrimack', Coppertina Ninebark and the slow growing 'Mikawa Yatsubusa' Japanese maple. Ground covers include Sweet Woodruff and 'Queen Esta' Epimedium.
On the other side of the walkway is the new bed formed with the installation of the stacked Goshen stone wall. Even though it faces north, this garden bed is barely eclipsed by the shade cast by our home, resulting in an entirely different sunny micro-climate. Trees and shrubs are underplanted with sun-loving, low-maintenance succulents, allium, grasses and woolly thyme. I've also tested a couple varieties of carex to accentuate and soften the front of the stone wall.
winter, 2016:
A primary goal for our new facelift was four season interest. The specimens that lend "bones" to the garden provide that interest in spades: Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Nana Gracilis', a 'Gold Spangle Thread’ Cypress, a Harry Lauder Walking Stick 'Red Dragon', and a Jack Pine 'Shoodic'. These and a variety of ornamental grasses lend beauty to the landscape 12 months of the year:
Second year tweaks, summer 2017:
Never content to just let something be, I decided that the front sunny bed presented the perfect opportunity to test my hand with a gravel garden. Instead of mulch, which can look messy and washed out over time, I find the pea gravel to be a worthy alternative - especially when wet. Water wise specimens planted in gravel are super easy care and I love how the gravel makes the plants really "pop". This garden only requires minimal care but offers sustained curb appeal.
spring, 2018:
In the fall of 2017, dozens of allium, tulip and miniature daffodil bulbs were planted in the gravel garden, and helped usher in a beautiful New Hampshire spring:
fast-forward to 2022:
The north plantings and gravel garden continue to evolve as plants adapt…or succumb. Sadly, we lost the gorgeous Hinoki cypress to the winter of 2019. In spring of 2020 we replaced it with a native lodgepole pine ‘Taylor’s Sunburst’ which sports stunning yellow needles on new growth from May through July. Needles emerge in tight golden ‘candles’ in early May, gradually bursting open with color developing from lemon to lime and eventually to green. This process is repeated with new growth every spring. The groundcovers have evolved to include more sedum, a variety of penstemon and California poppies.
