A Garden Transformation Saga & Stresser

Stress Dreams and a Jungle Landscape

I've been having stress dreams as we near the end of a massive project, the transformation of a "jungle" into a garden oasis. It’s not the massive scale or complexity of this project - that’s all solid. It’s more about a little fragile thing, maybe a boy inside, or call it ego- I seek approval. My client is passionate and knowledgeable about plants, which is a blessing and a challenge that means getting this exactly right for her is paramount.

Over the last 4 years, through a pandemic and a parade of obstacles, we've worked together to merge her vision with my experience, debating things like whether the old stone fountain should be bulldozed or re-imagined.

Controlled Chaos: Crews Converge on Site

This week, the former jungle has evolved into a hive of focused activity. We're managing plumbing and electrical for the outside. My hardscaping buddy Eddie's crew wrestles dusty, fingerprint-removing pavers while my team and I place each plant with care. Carpenters, painters, and plumbers weave around us, narrowly avoiding collisions and arguments. This little conversation happened between me and a carpenter last week:

"We're waiting on you all to move that lumber," I said. "We've been waiting four hours. Can we do it for you?" That nice sentence is spoken as a thinly veiled threat. But the carpenters speak Portuguese, and we only speak English and Spanish, so the guy doesn’t even get it.

There are moments that we simply cannot work. We wait for other crews to do their thing — that’s when I have to write this.

A New Landscape Emerges

Amidst the chaos, a new landscape is taking shape. The old fountain, which I can't wait to show you, has been transformed into a romantic, foliage-draped ruin. I wrote about the start of this project in a previous post. Take a look at the fountain "before" by clicking on this link to where we started. (Click Here) . And here's the "after":

Challenges and Lessons on the Road to Completion

There are still challenges ahead as we race towards the finish line. Over the next few weeks, I'll post about them and the great crew of guys who are getting dirty, stressed, and proud as we bring this project to fruition. And I plan to share a few practical landscaping lessons you can apply in your own garden.

Quick Tip: Combining Hedges and Ornamental Grasses for Privacy Screens

Here's one lesson to get us started: if you need a privacy screen, plant your evergreen shrubs at the proper spacing. Don't be tempted to plant them too close together.

Then, in between each shrub, plant large, fast-growing ornamental grasses. The grasses will provide quick, dense growth for privacy. But as the shrubs mature and fill in over the years, they will gradually shade out the grasses. A combination of, say, yaupon hollies and switch grass would be perfect for normal yards.

In this project, well, let’s be clear, this is not a normal yard. We needed a huge, house-hight, towering privacy screen, so here's our take on combining hedges and grasses:

Our privacy screen is made of evergreen Southern magnolias, and because we needed a really big grass, we used timber bamboo. I just took this “in process” pic about ten minutes ago:

Stay Tuned

I invite you to follow along over the coming weeks as we navigate the final challenges and surprises on the road to completing this garden transformation. We'll be problem-solving, collaborating, and capturing plenty of behind-the-scenes moments and pro tips. So stay tuned for more updates from the garden trenches as we race to the finish line!