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Goodbye Yews All - Front Yard Garden Opportunities

© Carol Wallace

One of the first articles I wrote in this topic was called Down with Mustaches which lamented the nearly universal tendency of homeowners to decorate the front of their houses with a hairy line of evergreen shrubs. It was too boring and predictable, and I urged people to be more adventurous - to express themselves with their front yard plantings.

Unfortunately, our house also bore a mustache. After several years of campaigning, I got my husband to agree to remove the yews at the side of the house and replaced those with a planting of helleborus argutifolius, green and yellow "Sunspot" Euonymus and a 'Carole Mackie' Daphne with green leaves outlines in pale yellow. All very low maintenance and tidy looking. In the midst of these, almost unseen as yet, are four Acer palmatum dissectum - small Japanese maples chosen for their weeping form and the fact that they shouldn't get high enough to obscure the view from the windows of the sunroom even at maturity. When they grow up. Japanese maples aren't cheap and so mine came in 4" pots. Visibility should occur in about four more years - but then, if nothing else, gardening teaches us patience. But someday I hope they will resemble those pictured here - the result of many years patience at our pondside planting area.

When that day comes, some of the hellebores can be moved to the woodland garden - nothing wasted. Not even the removed yews, since we chipped those up and used them for mulch. I have always been pleased with our decision to remove those yews - which were like mutton chop sideburns accompanying that front yard mustache.

And the line across the front of the house remained. It was almost out of sight and out of mind - we both got so focused on the backyard and all the gardens there that we didn't bother much with the front, except to mow.

I mean, we completely forgot about them. I hated those yews so much that I think I repressed them. They simply did not exist. At least I didn't actively see them.

At least not until a friend of mind - a fairly prominent garden writer - phoned to say he was in the area and would love to drop by for a visit.

That's when I not only noticed that yew mustache again, but realized that we hadn't touched them in at least 10 years. They had almost reverted to tree stature, were completely unkempt - we couldn't even see out the window to check to see if the mailbox flag was up.

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