Inherited Plants

When I was a kid we always lived in new houses that had formerly been uninhabited area, so this is the first house I've lived in where I inherited plants. This is good in some ways. I have big, established trees and shrubs that I could never have if I was planting everything myself, but I also have things I do not want. Overgrown roses, invasive weeds, a hedge along the driveway that seems to be asking to be crashed into occasionally. And grass. An old, weedy lawn that hasn't really been tended to besides occasional mowing for a long time. Probably decades.

The worst thing inherited was the parts of the garden that were badly tended. I showed pictures before of the tree that was being suffocated by ivy. Hopefully I managed to save it. My dad thinks its a dogwood tree and I would love to have it survive. Dogwood trees in bloom are gorgeous.

Even some of the big, established trees are not entirely welcome. I have this gigantic crepe myrtle on the side of the house. I'm not really planning on getting rid of it, but it's somewhat tempting. It's such a messy tree. In the late spring/early summer it drops it's plentiful flower petals, in summer it drops bark, and in the fall it dumps huge drifts of leaves. We have a drain at the foot of the stairs down to the basement that is constantly being filled up by crepe myrtle debris and we already had to have our gutter cleaned out once. But it really is an impressive crepe myrtle. I've never seen one that big before. 

Other inherited plants include a bunch of azaleas, some rose bushes (mostly terribly overgrown, but I'll attempt to remedy that), a Japanese maple, a dogwood tree, an evergreen that I believe is a Norway Spruce (arborday.org has a nice tree identifier), and a white willow. My dad identified the dogwood tree and white willow when he was here. I also have a couple of shrubs that were clearly added to the landscape when the house was put on the market. I am not sure what all of these are, but need to identify them. I plan on moving them and need to know when the best time to transplant each of them is and whether or not they are shade tolerant. I also seem to have some bulbs popping up here and there. My guess is daffodils, but I guess I'll find out in a couple weeks when they bloom.