Backyard Update

Last year, I wrote about a needed update we made to our backyard due to severe weather conditions we had experienced in the Memphis area.  This row of arborvitae along the fence had to be replaced as they were killed off by the combination of extreme cold and hot weather.  The extreme cold also killed off all of the mature Loropetulum bushes we had planted in our front yard a number of years ago.

But interestingly, the weather did not kill off some bushes that we would have been glad to see go.

After we had our pool built in 2000 and began the landscaping process, we needed to fill in this long bed between the patio and pool.  After struggling for a couple of years trying to figure out what best to plant there, my wife, being a lover of all things purple, decided she wanted to plant a row of purple-leafed bushes.  We bought and planted what my wife thought were Loropetulum but which turned out to be a different plant—a Barberry.

If you compare images online between the two, you can see some varieties look very similar but with one big distinction.  Barberry bushes have thorns, never a wise choice right next to a pool deck where barefooted swimmers walk.  If you zoom in on the photo above of an immature Barberry, the tiny thorns are practically invisible.  No wonder they are advertised as being deer resistant.  What deer would want to stick his nose and mouth into a sticker bush.  In fact, deer are now probably born with a gene that ensures they don’t bite this plant after the first sniff.

In the winter when the bush loses its leaves, the thorns are much more prominent.  And as you can see on a mature bush, they grow quite long.  Which makes for trimming in the summer a nightmare as the thorns are sharp enough to pierce even the best gardening gloves when the trimmed branches are picked up (which I have encountered numerous times with not so nice words being uttered).

After putting up with these bushes for at least 20 years, we decided to have them removed and replaced. My wife initially thought we should replace them with the originally intended Loropetulum.  But having had another hard winter, the new ones we had just planted last year in the front yard did not look like they had survived.  The Azaleas we had planted did much better, so I suggested a row of these to which my wife agreed.

There were no tears shed when this row of mature bushes was pulled from the ground…

… and replaced with Encore Azaleas.

As my wife loves flowers in the yard, I think she will enjoy this much more pleasing sight next to the pool.

Another update that we did in the backyard was also promptly by Mother Nature, but due to another of her forces.

In 2018, I replaced this fence along the right side of our yard.  It had not weathered very well, and fence boards were splitting and falling down.  I put up the new fence myself, writing about it at the time (click here for more on that story).

The fence running along the back of our yard had aged similarly but with added damage.  Facing the west, it took the brunt of high winds and over time, several of the fence posts had sheared off at the ground with the whole fence panel falling down into our yard.  I used several boards to prop it back up for a while.

Last fall, I tried to repair the broken fence posts and, in the process, seriously injured my back (which I still haven’t completely gotten over six months later, despite several medical interventions).

When our yard man was giving me the quote for replacing the Barberry bushes, I asked him if he could repair the fence.  He looked at it and asked how old it was.  I told him at least 25 years.  He smiled and said he thought I had gotten my money’s worth out of it.  He then pointed out that any repairs would only be stopgap measures and likely pulling the fence sections from the broken posts and the fence boards from the rotted cross beams would result in even more fence boards breaking.

After he gave me what I thought was a very reasonable quote, I gave him the green light.  Since our neighbor has a dog, I had to coordinate with them on timing and getting approval to work from their yard.  On a Monday afternoon, they came and quickly took down the ragged looking fence.

Before the end of the day, they had also set the new posts in the ground.

Two days later, they were back to put up the new fence which they did in just a few hours’ time (and much faster than I ever could have by myself).

While six years earlier, I had been able to replace the fence myself, I had not had to replace the fence posts which were still in good shape.  For the back fence, I knew digging holes for ten new fence posts would be beyond what my aging and already compromised back could bear.  So, I felt no remorse as I wrote the check for the completed work.

With these two changes and one more planned (more on that in the future), I knew we would be able to enjoy being out in our backyard oasis once more!