New Garden Revealed

After seven months of workers and inspectors and three-jurisdiction permit purgatory, my life is at last quiet. And heres where I spend hours a day on this 11 x 17-foot screened-in porch. A bug-free place to work and read and nap, with my three indoor cats. Heaven.

With the porch done, it was time to install the flagstone patio and walkway. Whats left for me to do is to plant more plants, and to make enough concrete pavers to form a path to the storage shed door. A DIY job right up my alley (no skill required).


Plant suggestions?
Above you see the largest area that needs filling in. At the back of this section, along the property line, I planted a Shasta doublefile viburnum, which you have to imagine at 15 or so feet tall, and a Ghost Weigela, which has yellow-green foliage and will soon be 5 x 5. In front of it are three Morning Light Miscanthus from my old garden, and then bare mulch awaiting maybe swaths of a couple of perennials. The space gets about four hours of sun.

Above you see the 3 Abelia species that I planted in April and have seen sprout up with impressive speed. Go, Abelia! Id never grown them before and had always loved their smell. To their right is a Fothergilla, another plant Id never grown before, and I must say its taking its sweet time growing.

Above is the view from the sidewalk at the bottom of the yard, where I planted three Cryptomerias to provide screening. Theyre gorgeous, soft to the touch, and grow surprisingly fast. To cover some of the shed Ive planted a crossvine and a climbing hydrangea.

Heres another somewhat empty and definitely problematic space between the porch and the neighbors privacy screen. On the left are some of the Blue Billow lacecrap hydrangeas I found on sale for 15 bucks each, and on the right, some of the Blue Maid hollies that are supposed to screen the screen. Im looking for someplace to hide the garden hose maybe one of those round terra cotta holders?
Problems, failures so far

• Some of my new plants are dying! Yes, the Blue Maid hollies are infected with some fungal disease or other (according to the garden center diagnosticians) and you know how that goes those fungicides are much better at prevention than cure. So of the seven hollies I bought in April that are super-important for providing screening, one is gone and another is done for. Damn.
• Speaking of screening, as I sit on my porch my primary view is of the back-neighbors storage area. So Im wishing Id spent more and bought Cryptomerias already tall enough to accomplish that job. (Patience is something I could use more of in this department.) I checked the before photo of the garden and noticed that a large burning bush did a splendid job of hiding the storage area, but I hated it and it had to go. So this is a case of things getting worse before they slowly get better.
• Finally (for now), the soil here is crappy hard-packed clay. My original plan to hire someone to amend it with compost was itself amended by the reality of the humongous amount of compost involved almost a thousand bucks worth in bags, since theres noplace to dump a truckload. Instead, I paid a worker just to remove the existing shrubs that burning bush, and a bunch of misshapen azaleas. Soil amendment will have to come plant by plant, as I mix compost into each planting hole. Plus, Im counting on earthworms to turn the nice organic mulch Im using into decent topsoil, eventually. Maybe in time for the next gardener here.