When we bought our house, it had already been professionally landscaped. Not very well, in my opinion, but landscaped nonetheless. The landscaping is pretty typical boring low-maintenance suburban stuff. The kind you see in McMansion developments. Not my style at all. Not that I really have a style. Unless you consider "melee of random plants and flowers" a style.
This year I hope to start replanting the beds around the house, as well as adding some new garden beds in the backyard. First on the "To-do List" is re-locating the grasses on the south and west sides of the house. I believe they're some sort of Pennisetum, but I'm not sure. Grasses aren't really my thing.
It's not that I don't like grasses. They're nice, low maintenance plants. They provide winter interest. They're hardy and require little water. And they produce lovely seed heads.
Those lovely seed heads then produce more grasses.
Usually in places I don't want grasses. So, the grasses will be relocated somewhere out in the wider landscape where they can be hardy and interesting and spread to their little heart's content without infiltrating the other plantings.
They're really getting much too big to be next to the house, anyway. I'll replace them with roses, which are much tidier plants for planting against the foundation, I think.
It's still a bit too early to transplant the grasses, but I've chopped them back and done a little experimental digging to get an idea of the size of their root ball (huge!). I will probably divide them when I move them, might as well do it while I have them out of the ground. Now I just have to figure out where to put five giant grasses (probably ten, after dividing). Good thing we have five acres!
