Can finding more options actually make deciding easier? At least it is a fun tree hunt! I had the past week off for summer break, so I took a little road trip down to Chicagoland and into the arms of a true garden enthusiast. She whisked me off to the Plant Clinic at the Morton Arboretum and soon I had a whole new list of tree/shrub possibilities, plus an amazing catalog of plants, neatly circled with suggestions. These included:

- Tecumseh Compact River Birch: small, short, compact, weeping tree with pendulous branches. While we searched for this tree, we never found one in the wilds of the arb.
- Weeping Redbud: An option I was very excited about until I saw it. We both agreed to call it “swamp thing”.
- Tina Crab Apple: I’m still not sure about the crabapple.
- Dwarf Korean Lilac: These can be grafted to be little trees.
- Lancelot Crab Apple ‘lanzam’: This may be the tree that the city planted in our devil strip aka terrace.
- Magnolia x Butterflies: I still find it hard to believe that I could have a magnolia in Wisconsin.
- Brevipetala Witch Hazel: This was the winning shrub of the day. Interesting, irregular shape, dramatic branches and fun flowers.

After all that, I’m leaning towards the Witch Hazel. There are a few varieties that stay under ten feet and they have a natural, tamed-wildness that I think is pleasing.

We had some trees removed from our backyard and while the big machinery was around, I had them pull out the old evergreen shrubs running along the front of our house. Taking out the bushes brought the look of the house from 1970s to a timeless classic. Next up is planting a butterfly garden in the front. As part of this new garden I really wanted to put a beautiful Japanese Maple in the front left corner of the yard. This would be the anchoring focal point, the show piece.

I’ve always wanted a Japanese Maple and marched off to the nursery to pick one out. Of course, when I got there I learned that they are a fussy tree, preferring afternoon shade rather than the full-on, unobstructed, southern exposure that I have. The experts at the nursery convinced me that if I planted one of these maples they’d look like burned-out shells all the time.

Now what? I would like a tree or shrub that never gets too large, that has “interesting” color, multi-trunk and an overall round shape. Working with the nursery we came up with four options:

- Black Lace Elder – The “poor man’s japanese maple”, it has the dark lacy leaves and dainty flowers but is it too bushy
- Smoke Bush – Beautiful leaf color and interesting flowers but is it too common
- Contorted Filbert aka Corkscrew Hazel – Great winter interest but the summer greenery is less exciting
- Weeping Pussy Willow – Fun, weeping shape but I’m not sure how well it will really do in my climate and how round it will be at full size

Right now I’m leaning towards the elder or the filbert, but I’m still looking for other options and other opinions. Maybe there is another shrub/tree out there that would be even better. All opinions or suggestions welcome!

My first roses of 2008.

First on the not-so-cheap spectrum, I broke down and hired a yard service or more like a yard man. For the past year a co-worker has talked of the wonderful ex-marine who does battle with her yard. After I suffered a huge defeat in leaf pick-up last fall and a complete degradation in back yard maintenance this summer, I signed up. I’ve never loved my yard as much as I have for the past month. Now when I look at my yard I see manageable projects to be tackled, not a horror story in the making.

On to the cheap! As you’ve all heard by now Atlanta and the south east is under a severe drought, to the point where we could actually run out of drinking water. Two recent additions to our yard center around these drought conditions.

For $12 we bought a 16 inch terracota dish and used an old plant stand to create a fully functioning bird bath / back yard drinking spot for the local fauna. After exhaustive research, it seemed that even the ugliest, cheapest bird baths still cost $30, so this was a huge win. In the future I may even mosaic the surface of the dish, for extra decorative flair.

Do you know how expensive official rain barrels cost? I found they started around $50 for a “kit” and went up well over $100. As a first step in water collection we rigged up two, 32-gallon, $4 trash cans. We set them up by two primary downspouts on our house. When it starts to rain we run out and move the downspout hose into the trash can. The cans have lids to keep debris and bugs out of the collected water. Presto! Cheap and easy rainwater.

We will probably upgrade to a barrel system with an overflow feature, but for now we have plenty of water for yard projects and birdbaths, all for under ten bucks.

This past weekend we began our requisite home ownership gardening. Tackling our giant, overgrown, ill-planned yard may seem daunting, but we got a kick start when I received two rose bushes and a butterfly bush in the mail as a late arriving birthday present from my Mom.

The front side yard has three old rose bushes that bloomed like mad last year. I thought it would be great to turn the side of the front yard into a long rose garden. The above photo is the result of two hard days of work. The before photo shows the overgrown, grassy field we had to dig up.

With the help of our local organic gardening center, we planted the two rose bushes, a Double Delight and a Royal Bonica. They came as bare root plants, packed in a box. When I pulled them out they looked amazingly like the little mandrake root baby from Pan’s Labyrinth.

In between the roses we planted Prostrate Rosemary and Veronica Georgia Blue, both of which will creep over the top of the mini pine nuggets and provide purple flowers, one in the spring, one in the fall.

Photos of the butterfly bush garden will be coming soon. I need to do a little more work on it this weekend. And with this I open a new category of my blog, “Garden” and a new role as a home gardener.