Our back yard desperately needed screening from a road that ran along a ridge behind our property.
In 2005 we had a landscaper put in a raised berm with 5 large spruces and 4 tiny hollies.
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| March 28, 2006 |
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| May 14, 2007 |
In 2008 I planted several yellowroot plants (
Xanthorrhiza simplicissima) along the front edge (the round green blobs in the shot below). Over the years they filled in beautifully.
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| August 17. 2008 |
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| August 7, 2009 |
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| October 30, 2010 |
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| February 21, 2011 |
By 2011 the yellowroot had spread and filled in all along the front edge of the berm.
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| July 14, 2011 |
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| November 15, 2011 |
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| January 20, 2012 |
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| June 16, 2012 |
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| June 16, 2012 |
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| January 17, 2013 |
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| April 14, 2013 |
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| October 24, 2013 |
Big changes to the berm in 2014. We had to take out some of the struggling blue spruces. Not all -- we left the three on the left side as a grouping, but took out the two that were struggling the most on the right side.
First, in spring the pyramidal hollies that had been planted in between each spruce all came out. They were crowding all the lower branches, and had gotten badly winter burned and we took them all out.
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| 4/28/14 - just before the winterburned hollies came out |
Even without the hollies crowding them, the spruce berm was getting a little too full. The two trees behind the river birch on the right were really shaded.
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| 5/31/14 |
The lower branches had been disappearing for years, and were now looking pretty bad.
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| 2014 - the last two on the right had quite a bit of branch dieback |
In December the two on the right were taken down. Now there is a stand of three Colorado Blue spruces remaining clustered on the left, which still looks good, but nothing behind the river birch. I'll have to plant up that open area.
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| 12/14/14 |
The three remaining spruces from the other side of the berm.
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| 4/19/15 |
In early spring 2015 I moved the two Birds Nest spruces from the front walk where they were getting very crowded, to the now empty side of the berm.
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| 4/28/15 |
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| 4/28/15 |
I like the way the dense green of these low, flat evergreens mirrors the tall evergreen spruces on the other side of the berm.
I planted several more spicebushes on the empty side to add to the two that had been so crowded behind the big spruces that were taken out. The intent is to have a little woodland of Lindera benzoin on one side, the big spruces on the other, and river birches between.
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| 5/13/15 |
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| 6/10/15 |
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| 10/27/15 |
