Blog de Puree

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After purchasing and planting our ‘Winter Gem’ boxwood shrubs from Lowe’s last year (See last year’s blog post here), we are happy to see that our border experiment is working.
To start, we planted what we called the “Boxwood shade gardens,” one on each side of our front steps to fill in the area that was [...]

The Boxwood shade gardens at our house, which flank the front steps, are the final vision for our replacement of the original Yew hedges that were here when we bought our house. I’ve blogged about them before, but wanted to provide some links to images and show the original plan we worked from.

Jacob’s Ladder
Claret Masterwort
Helleborus [...]

Red square pavers are kind of boring for a walkway. At least, we thought so.
One of the many projects this spring was to replace the lame red stone pavers in the front with irregular shaped pieces of gray slate, some with orange streaks and tinges. This was to create a more organic looking walkway.
After looking [...]

Save for a few final touches, the Boxwood shade gardens and the Maple shade garden are finished.
Last week, the top soil (Loom/Loam) finally arrived and I was able to fill the raised Maple shade garden planter. Once that step was completed, I planted the flowers and bushes that had previously arrived and which were waiting [...]

This weekend, I tackled a number of yard projects that had to get done early this spring in order to be ready for other projects to come when the weather warmed. While it was a bit chilly (40 to 50 degrees) and there was still snow on the ground, it was warm enough to break [...]

We made more progress on our stone wall this week.
A colleague and good friend of mine lives near some deserted granite quarries in Gloucester. After talking about the slow progress of our stone wall, she offered all the rocks I could fit in my car from the huge pile of rock and granite near the [...]

Two months after making my original order for 25 boxwood shrubs with Lowes, they finally arrived. It was the wrong cultivar and size, but as it is August, with the growing season closing fast and the fact that this variety is still evergreen in our particular zone, I threw up my hands and bought them [...]

There are some interesting dynamics around the perimeter of our yard because we live on a corner lot. Along the two sides that face the street, there is a lot of foot traffic, dog walkers and people who like to park their cars partially on the grass.
The people walking around the neighborhood aren’t an issue, [...]

Trees often have a mind of their own, as our Japanese Flowering Cherry tree demonstrated when it was planted on the east side of our yard, in our front lawn. The leader, or main part of the trunk that typically extends straight up was disappointingly small and one of the branches grew large and strong [...]