We have been in our new home for a year and a half now and we are finally putting our backyard together and I couldn’t be happier! We want a low maintenance yard so we are doing lots of hardscape, flower beds, and no grass! So far we have installed a large concrete patio for 3 separate outdoor living spaces: a spa area, lounge space, and a spot for outdoor dining. Next comes the part I have been dreaming of for over a year, the landscaping!
There are so many option when it comes to flowers, plants, and trees that I was a bit overwhelmed in the beginning, but now have a more clear picture of what I want the space to look like. We have already starting planting around the back deck and the side of the house, and now we are planning out the large planter bed that will run along the side of the concrete patio. Here is what we have planted so far and a list of trees and plants we are considering for the back of the yard along the fence line.
Roses and Hydrangeas
These are 2 of my very favorite things to plant. They are easy to grow and so beautiful in full bloom! We are planting 2 types of roses in our backyard, Iceberg Roses and Hybrid Tea Roses.
Iceberg Roses
The Iceberg rose is a shrub type rose, relatively fast growing and disease resident. They produce beautiful smaller size white roses from late spring to first frost. These are great to use as boarders around decks and porches, as well as hedges and lining fences. They can get large but are shapable and can be cut back to desired size. We planted a few of these in our front yard flower beds last year and just recently planted more along the side of our house. They love sun so plant them where you get full sun! This is what my iceberg roses looked like at my last house after only a few years!
Hybride Tea Rose
The Hybrid Tea Rose is a beautiful show stopper rose. It grows tall stocks and is perfect for cutting to bring fresh roses into you home. The blooms are large and fragrant, they also love lots of sun and are easy to grow. We are planting these along the back side of our home where they have the ability to grow tall and wide and I can’t wait to see them flourish!
Snowball Hydrangea
The Snowball Hydrangea is a beautiful round in shape hydrangeas bush. They like full sun to part shade. We are planting these around our back deck. This type of hydrangea gets large, wide and tall so they make for great borders around areas like decks. I have dreams of sitting out here being surrounding by flowers all day! This is also a great hydrangea for colder areas and they bloom on new wood so in the winter cut it pretty far down and new shoots pop up and bloom in the spring.
Limelite Hydrangeas
We planted 2 Limelite hydrangea trees in our front yard last year and I love them so much. They are a beautiful white colored large cone shaped bloom and they come as trees or shrubs. They do well in full sun to part shade and bloom on old wood. This means in the winter you only cut off the dead blooms and leave the old stocks. If you cut off the stocks you won’t have blooms the next year because all the new blooms are already growing inside the stocks waiting to pop out the next season. If you’re local check out Glover Nursery or Sun River Gardens – this is where I got mine from!
Trees
We are planning to add 4 or 5 trees to our yard along the back fence line inside a large garden bed are are building. We need something that doesn’t get too large but will still provide us with some shade and privacy. The options are seriously endless and picking trees is a large investment. You also have to think about how it will work in your yard once it’s at it’s full maturity, otherwise you will be ripping trees out and no one wants to do that! Some of the top contenders for us right now are:
Magnolia tree
Birch tree (it’s name alone is so fitting!)
Musashino Zelkova
Willow
Tree recommendations
I asked you all what you favorite backyard trees are, something on the smaller size around 30′ max hight and here are your top recommendations! We will be adding a few of these to our yard from this list over the next month and I will share the process and what we picked out.
Dakota Birch
Cherry Blossom Tree
Dogwood Tree
Firestick Tree
Japanese Maple Tree – (Recommended by many)
Autum Blaze Maple
Ruby Sunset Maple Tree
Pacific Sunset Maple Tree
Crimson Sunset Maple Tree
Crep Myrtle – (Recommended by many)
Redbud Tree – (Recommended by many)
Zelkova Tree
Rocket Juniper Tree
Kentucky Coffee Tree
Crabapple Tree
Bradford Pear Tree
Columnar Oak Tree
Dwarf Lilac Tree
Karl Fuchs Tree
Sanders Blue Atlas Tree
Chokecherry Tree
Stay tuned to see how this project unfolds and all the trees and flowers we pick for our backyard!
-Grey Birch Designs-
