Where to begin? When you move into a brand new house that is surrounded by nothing but an expanse of curling, just-laid sod or, even worse, rutted mud and construction debris, it can be hard to decide on the plants that will create your ideal landscape.

For some, there is a temptation to do a rush job in order to make the house look more like a home, digging beds almost at random and filling them with just about anything green. For others, the task is too overwhelming to contemplate and the landscape is pretty much left to Mother Nature.

The best solution, however, lies somewhere in between. Here are questions from two brand new home owners who are faced with this dilemma.

QUESTION: “Our house was just built; in fact it is still being finished up. It has a small front yard and wet lands in the back. We’re looking for something to spruce up the front lawn / patio area. Right now, there is nothing on the property so this will be a fresh start. I have attached 2 pictures of the house so you can see and maybe give me some idea of what I can do.

“Right now, the only thing I have in my mind would be a Japanese dwarf maple and maybe golden mops with barberry shrubs. The only reason I chose those was because of the burgundy color roof. The house itself is more of the khaki brown color.

“I have been racking my brain with this all week as to what I can do. I have no idea about planting so I feel I need something that requires little or low maintenance.” — Sharon

ANSWER: From the photos you sent me, as a first step, I would recommend foundation plants or anchor plants on the corners. I would go with evergreens like arborvitae or holly.

I would also suggest Bamboo Green Panda. It will grow to a height of about 8 feet with deep green leaves and orange-red sheaths. Green Panda is a fargesia or “non-running” variety which means it is non-invasive and does not need to be contained. Another benefit is that Green Panda is fast-growing so you won’t have to wait long to get that “established” feel on your new landscape. We have this bamboo ourselves and have found it to be very easy to maintain.

You might want to take a look at some of the new dwarf Crape Myrtles like Pocomoke or Chickasaw to line the driveway or plant in front of the house. Some crimson pygmy Barberry shrubs would add some low-maintenance color, too.

I would get these first and then stand back and a take another look. Landscaping is a work in progress. I have found the best way is to plant a few plants, mulch them in, get grass going and then add as needed.

The next question was fielded by my wife Cheryl.

QUESTION: “This is the first house we’ve owned. Our back yard is needing some help to look better. We want to improve our yard little by little, so what’s a perennial that would add some color to our yard?” — Dick and Mel

ANSWER: The first thing that you should do is just live in your new home and enjoy it over the first year or so to begin planning your ideas of how you will be using your property on a long term basis.

You might not want to go to a large expense to add color to your landscape at this time as you may end up only changing the area. Using annuals, perennials and ornamental grasses grown in containers can brighten up your deck or patio areas. Specific varieties will depend on the amount of sunlight in your yard area.

As you and your family begin enjoying your new home, make drawings and notes about the different ways the property seems to be developing itself for use. As you do this the landscape will come into being, becoming easier to narrow down to trees, shrubs, ornamental grasses and other perennials.

The Plant Man is here to help. Send your questions about trees, shrubs and landscaping to steve@landsteward.org and for resources and additional information, or to subscribe to Steve’s free e-mailed newsletter, visit www.landsteward.org

Some plants seem to do just fine in clay soil, but for others you will need to provide much better drainage. Here’s a question from a reader who is faced with that problem.

QUESTION: “My hosta/herb garden is located directly behind my newly constructed home of 3 years on 7 open acres that used to be farm fields. The back of the house and garden face mostly eastward.

”The topography of the land is sloped with the house positioned at the top. When we built the home we added soil (clay) from the neighbor who just started building (as we were finishing), on “plastic” soil at the bottom of the hill which used to be a pond many years ago. I am assuming “plastic” and “clay” soils are the same or close.

”The hostas really don’t seem to mind the soil, but I am finding out that as I add lavender and other herbs, they just don’t like it. I put a rhododendron in as an accent but it too croaked.

”I thought about removing the soil and starting over, but that would be costly as the area is about 25 foot square, sits on top of the plumbing to the septic tank, and I do have some plants already established that would have to be temporarily removed….is there an amending solution that would be less expensive and stressful for my plants?” – Donna Hrenak

ANSWER: I can certainly relate to this question! We have an area beside our home where we built a garden area using fill from a pond we were digging at the time. So, basically, we used all fill and mostly clay.

For lavender we dug a trench about one foot deep, took out that soil and replaced it with a mixture of concrete sand and small amounts of soil. This allowed good drainage for the lavender. Lavender is a Mediterranean plant that does not need a lot of water. Most herbs will also need to be done the same way. In other parts of the garden I raised the soil level to about 4 foot creating berms. Most of the herbs that do well in our garden are planted there.

I did have drainage tiles put in around the garden about 2 foot into the soil that are exactly like drainage tiles for septic lines that move a lot of the runoff from hard rains to outside the garden area. However, the tile thing may not work for you because you are sitting on the septic line.

I can suggest a product that is organic that I use in compacted soil but needs to be done more then once a year. It’s called Prosper Soil Conditioner and it increases friability, resists crusting, allowing water and air to permeate soil However, this would be for general use. For the herbs and lavender and plants like that, I would suggest that you do what we did in the similar situation as described above.

QUESTION: “We have just built a new home and are trying to do the landscaping ourselves. We planted two dappled willows in the front on either side of a set of windows with a boxwood in the middle.

“Can we keep the dappled willows trimmed and shaped to where they will not overpower the boxwood and stay a medium sized shrub, or should we move them to the side of the house where they can get bigger? They look beautiful now but I heard they can get huge. I love the color and if at all possible would like them to be in the front.” – Lisa Minnick

ANSWER: You are correct in that it can reach a height of 15 to 20 feet, but if you keep it shaped and trimmed you should be able to manage it for quite a number of years.

The Plant Man is here to help. Send your questions about trees, shrubs and landscaping to steve@landstewrd.org and for resources and additional information, or to subscribe to Steve’s free e-mailed newsletter, visit www.landsteward.org

You might still be mopping you brow under a broiling August sun, but it’s already time to be making plans for fall planting.

For me, and for many other garden lovers, this is one of the most enjoyable times of the year. Rather like small children imagining the pile of colorfully-wrapped gifts they’ll find under the tree on Christmas morning, we look through catalogs or browse online and visualize vibrant clusters of showy shrubs that will burst forth next spring as a result of our fall planting.

But where do you begin?

Much as it’s fun to do your own detective work as you begin the hunt for the perfect landscape, it sometimes helps to have a few pointers to get your creative juices flowing. So here are some ideas for you. Some might be familiar, some might be quite new to you. But even if they aren’t quite your horticultural cup of tea, they might spark a few ideas of your own.

Physocarpus Summer Wine
Cheryl and I saw this plant at a nursery and went straight over to get an up-close look. It has deeply cut, dark red/crimson leaves, and we both agreed this would be an excellent deciduous shrub to place around yellow or bright green plants to provide dramatic contrast to their color. It creates its own contrast in the spring, however, when it bursts forth with sprays of white, button-like blooms.

Summer Wine is a relatively new Ninebark hybrid and we’ve found that it’s a strong grower but never leggy or out of control. Extremely hardy (to zone 3), it will reach a mature height of 4 to 6 feet and about the same width.

Spiraea Snow Storm
If you would enjoy the sight of brilliant white, closely-packed white blooms, akin to a snow storm in summer, this could be the shrub for you. The snow-white blooms with tiny pink centers appear from early to mid summer and make a nice contrast with the large, deep blue-green leaves that turn to a blazing orange red in the fall.

Snow Storm tops out at around 4 feet and prefers medium-moisture, well-drained soil.

Spiraea Magic Carpet
Sticking with the Spiraea family, consider Magic Carpet if you’d like to see deep pink flowers over bronze to light green foliage that is delicately tipped with red. This is a relatively small plant, reaching to a height of maybe 12 to 18 inches with a spread of about 24 inches, so you could also consider it for a ground cover that will reward you with colorful blooms from early to mid-summer. The foliage will turn to a russet brown that usually lasts until mid-November.

Magic Carpet produces the most vibrant color when exposed to full sun and is drought tolerant.

Abelia Silver Anniversary
This is a colorful deciduous shrub that is easy to grow and was a New National plant release for 2006. I particularly like this one because of its distinct silver to cream margined variegated foliage that form tight, neat groupings around the reddish-brown stems.

Blooming from late spring to early fall, Silver Anniversary will grow to about 1 to 3 feet in height, does just fine in full sun to moderate shade and is adaptable to many soil types with moderate moisture.

Climbing Hydrangea
If you’re looking for a climbing plant to enhance a large fence or pergola or to cover a less-than-beautiful wall, consider the Hydrangea petiolaris. It’s easy to grow, virtually care-free and long-lived, reaching heights (or lengths) of 60 to 80 feet.

Between May and July, it provides a show of creamy white flowers against a backdrop of rich green foliage and peeling bark. You might also use it as a ground cover or let it snake across and around the rocks of a rustic stone wall beside a garden pathway.

I hope I have given you food for thought. In the weeks ahead, I’ll come up with more suggestions, but if you’d like some personal help, e-mail me a few details about your landscape and what you hope to achieve and I’ll do my best to come up some ideas for you.

The Plant Man is here to help. Send your questions about trees, shrubs and landscaping to steve@landsteward.org and for resources and additional information, or to subscribe to Steve’s free e-mailed newsletter, visit www.landsteward.org

One of the pleasures of writing this column is the feedback that I receive from you, the readers. Sometimes that feedback is a question about a problem with a tree or shrub. Sometimes, it’s a suggestion I can pass along to help another reader who has a garden issue. And sometimes, it’s a follow-up to something I’d written in an earlier column.

Today, I’ll pass on a reader’s idea to keep lawns free of doggy-related brown spots. But first, let’s talk about the importance of good soil drainage.

QUESTION: “I have just moved to a new subdivision and to dig the pond we had to rent a jack hammer. That’s how bad the clay is. We have also made a spot for a vegetable plot and a flower bed but the clay is a problem. My local nursery suggested raised beds but this would be difficult for the veg plot. They also said I could try gypsum and peat moss but didn’t mention how much. The flower bed is 8 feet round and the vegetable plot is about 30ft by 15ft. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.” – Aubrey Frost.

ANSWER: To drain correctly, soil needs something known as “large pore
space.” Soil with a clay content of 20% or more is said to be dominated by “small pore space.” This means water is slow to move or perhaps won’t move at all, causing the soil to become waterlogged.

Amending the soil with organic matter will certainly help, but as you’ve discovered, the biggest thing you will need to be concerned about is good drainage. Plants will grow in amended soil but have a tough time establishing in soil that remains compacted with no drainage.

I would remove some of the soil down to about 10 or 12 inches and put in drain tiles. It’s not as difficult as you may imagine if you do what they do when laying a drain field for a septic tank. Basically, it’s a series of drains feeding into one long one that takes the waters away from the planting beds, or at least down to where the soil percs.

If you plan to do this yourself, it’s a good idea to read up on it first.
You could start by looking at this online article on soil drainage published by the Colorado State University Extension:
http://cmg.colostate.edu/gardennotes/217.pdf There’s a direct link to that
site from this column archived at my Web site. You can find drain tile supplies at many home improvement stores.

There are some plants that can tolerate poorly drained soil. These include Arborvitae, Crape Myrtle, Butterfly Bush and some hollies such as Inkberry, Yaupon and Winterberry. However, amending the soil organically and improving the drainage will be the best long-term solution.

HI STEVE: “I am really proud of our creative solution to this (dog-damaged
lawn) problem! We have a Lab and six, soon to be seven, kiddos. We did not want the lawn to be a hazard zone, so when our puppy came home, we trained her by taking her out to a designated “potty spot” every time she had to go, out in the back of our yard. So the end result is that she always heads out to her “potty spot” and the lawn looks great and the kids stay out of her poo.” — The Droke Family

ANSWER: Designating a specific area for a canine bathroom (and rewarding the dog after he or she uses it) is a great way to keep the rest of landscape free of urine-browned spots and nasty messes.

The Droke family trained their new puppy right from the start, but maybe some other readers found a way to teach an old dog new tricks! Send me an e-mail if you had any success in that area. If you want to read the original column, go to www.landsteward.org and find the one titled “Dog-damaged lawns need creative landscape solutions.”

The Plant Man is here to help. Send your questions about trees, shrubs and landscaping to steve@landsteward.org and for resources and additional information, or to subscribe to Steve’s free e-mailed newsletter, visit www.landsteward.org