Like so many others, our back walk connects the back porch with the street. In our case, this walk extends east and west, south of and near the house.
For the most part, we have planted dwarf or low-growing conifers and small or slow-growing shrubs along them.
They were chosen for this location so that the planting on the south side of the walk would not shade that on the north so that neither would cut the light from the windows.
It is because, unless I were trying to hide something, I would rather have a good small woody plant than a good large one almost any time.
Most of these plants were set in their present locations 8 to 12 years ago, yet most are still no more than the height of the average knee. Some of them have been pruned a bit, not sheared.
A few have been moved farther back from the walk or replaced by smaller specimens if they threatened to interfere with snow removal or the footwork of grocers and milkmen.
South Side Plants
Some, not all, of the plants used may be identified or recognizable in the photograph. On the south side of the walk, farthest from the house, are:
- Cotoneaster horizontalis
- Cotoneaster Adpressa
- Daphne Eneorum
- Spike Heath (Bruckenthalia spiculifolia)
Dwarf Plants
Waukegan juniper, and dwarf or low-growing forms of Norway spruce, hemlock, yews, American arborvitae, Sawara cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera minima).
Hinoki cypress ( the varieties nana, filicoides, and lycopodioides of Chamaecyparis obtusa), and Picea glauca conica.
The last name is one of my favorites, although a regular garden center for the red spiders.
Cotoneasters Plants
North of this walk, between it and the house, is more of the cotoneasters, such as:
- Magnolia stellata (it likes a sheltered place)
- Euonymus fortunei’ minimus
- Juniperus Chinensis sargenti
- The Tanyosho pine
- Pinus densiflora umbraculifera
Near the cellar windows, where only the lowest growing plants are wanted, those are:
- Cactus Opuntia Vulgaris Or Humifusa
- Dianthus Deltoides
- Dianthus Plumarius
Sempervivum tectorum, known in various parts of the English-speaking world as house-leek, hen-and-chickens, or welcome-home-husband-however-so-drunk.
The vines on the house are:
- Akebia Quinata
- The Hybrid Clematis Ramona
- A Yellow-Flowering Trumpet Honeysuckle
- Lonicera Sempervirens Sulphurea
- The Climbing Rose
- Silver Moon
Side Yard Plants
This planting along the walk is a part of what we call the side yard, for it is certainly neither back nor front.
It is bounded on the south by a hedge of Japanese quince faced down by lower shrubs, and on the front by a mixed planting of deciduous shrubs and broad-leaved evergreens.
It separates from the front lawn and street, thus giving us some privacy from the neighbors and vice versa. Here we have:
- Mountain Laurel
- Kaempfer’s Azalea
- Pinxter Flower
- Carolina Rhododendron
- Rhododendron Vaseyi
- Rhododendron Schlippenbachii
- Ilex Glabra
- Enkiantlitts
- Sweet Pepperbush
- Chinese Witch Hazel
- Franklinia
When they crowd one another too much, I remove the deciduous species letting the evergreens and azaleas have the floor. You can’t grow two plants in the same place.
Herbaceous Species
The only herbaceous species, not counting weeds, in this planting is such shade-tolerant plants as:
- Black snakeroot (cimicifuga)
- Red and white baneberries
- Campanula persicifolia
- Foxglove
I prefer woody plants, high-growing where a screen is needed and low-growing where it’s not.
44659 by William L. Doran