I woke up this morning thinking about our bedroom door. Of course, since I’m working on our bedroom, I also need to finish the door. This means building steps outside the door so that the door is actually usable. And then I started thinking about what exactly the landscaping should look like. We are now in October and from what I have read online, October through December is a perfect time to plant shrubs in this zone. (We are in Zone 8b.)
I’ve created a few models of the door using ChatGPT in the past, but these were just general ideas.
I will not be pouring concrete steps. I will build wooden steps to match the wooden porch. And the top landing needs to be higher to be level with the doorway.
But what I’m really asking is what to plant in the corner. A small cone-shaped evergreen has been placed in this ChatGPT model. I love this, but I want something much bigger. I think it needs to be 4 to 6 feet tall. It can’t be something that grows in width since it’s in a corner (not too close to the house, but still in a corner). And this area only receives direct sunlight early in the morning and then remains in shade for the rest of the day.
In our landscaping plan, the landscape architect suggested an oakleaf hydrangea for this area.
I love oakleaf hydrangeas, but I definitely won’t be able to use one in this area.
This plan was made when there was a window there. Since oakleaf hydrangeas can reach 6 to 10 feet wide, a door won’t work there. The maximum distance I have between the house and the edge of the step is five feet.
The four plants he suggested to the left of the oakleaf hydrangea are dwarf Burford hollies.
This is a beautiful shrub, but the width when fully grown is eight to ten feet, so I don’t think that will work either.
And then the rows of plants in front of those on the landscape plan are Japanese boxwoods.
This might be my best option. I already know that boxwoods grow very well on this side of our house because we have a lot of them on the side of the house. I don’t know if it’s specifically Japanese boxwood or another variety, but I’ve never touched it and it’s thriving. The Japanese boxwood grows 1.5 to 1.8 meters tall and 1.2 to 1.8 meters wide, but can be pruned to keep it smaller.
I’m so out of my element when it comes to plants. If I have an area of ​​expertise, it’s interiors. I feel comfortable and safe there. But as soon as I go outside and start thinking about plants, I feel so insecure. I walk through a child’s room and feel overwhelmed and unable to make decisions.
But if I just take that first step and buy a few plants to put behind the bedroom door, plant them, and then keep them alive, maybe that will give me the confidence to actually start landscaping in front of our house. It definitely needs some landscaping! We have lived in our house for 12 years now and I have never planted a single plant anywhere. I would really like to change that, but plants make me very nervous. My track record for keeping plants alive is atrocious.
So if you have any other ideas for what I can use around this door, please let me know! Again, I’m in zone 8b and this door is only exposed to direct sunlight in the early morning. The corner between the house and where the steps will be is about 6 feet. So, plant people, let me know what you think! What will be easy for this non-plant person to stay alive?
