Help me cheaply improve my crappy apartment's barren soil/dying shrub

July 2, 2013 11:29 AM

What are some cheap plants/landscaping that can grow in the shady barren-dirt-place next to my condo's front door and/or something I can do to revivify the pathetic shrub that languishes nearby?

I'm not living at this place forever, and I don't have much control over the external landscaping. But the shrub and soil patch near my front door and patio look pathetic, and I wanted to do something to help them look nicer without a big financial investment.

The shrub is missing a lot of foliage/needles on one side, and the dirt patch used to be maintained daily with flowers by my elderly neighbor with some effort but has since gone ignored. I just want it to not be a barren dirt patch, and I want the shrub to flourish like the ones elsewhere around the complex.

I saw shrub fertilizer sticks, would those help? Is there an easy-grow seed I can scatter over the barren dirt patch? My gardening skillz are rudimentary but ANY advice to improve my exterior inexpensively would be greatly appreciated, both for my remaining time at this place and for when I need to sell it and move. Thank you!

posted by Locative to Home & Garden (9 answers total)

This would be easier with a pic of the shrub, but the most common way they get barren in sections is that they get neglected for a while, get overgrown, and then someone comes along and cuts them back to the desired size, cutting off all the recent green growth and leaving only hard, woody stems. Whether it can recover and fill in again varies by species. Some kinds of shrubs won't ever green back up in drastically trimmed areas; you fix it by digging it up and putting in a new one.

For the dirt patch, don't mess with seeds. Hit a garden center and buy some appropriate plants that are suited to the amount of sunlight the area gets, and how well drained the soil is. It's getting late in the garden-planting season, so plants are cheap now. Also get a bag of mulch. Dig holes for the plants at roughly the spacing recommended on the plastic label, loosen the soil a bit with a shovel (break up clumps), take the plants out of their pots and set them in place, filling in around them and gently firming the soil. Cover the dirt with mulch. Water plants thoroughly.
posted by jon1270 at 12:28 PM on July 2, 2013

Response by poster: Thank you, jon1270. I'm not sure if this shrub is half-dead or just at a low point in its life.

Here is the pathetic shrub which looks bad from every angle.

Here is the sad, shady dirt patch.
posted by Locative at 2:00 PM on July 2, 2013

That shrub is done. Dig around it, yank / cut it out and put something else there.

For the patch of dirt, I suggest pachysandra. It's a durable, low-maintenance and shade-friendly ground cover. Once you get it established, you won't have to worry about it.
posted by jon1270 at 3:09 PM on July 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

The shrub appears to be a yew. You can cut it back all the way to the ground. It will probably come back better next year, and you can prune it and shape it as it grows back if you want. Yews are very hard to remove.

As far as the sad dirt patch goes, how about throwing a bag of shredded bark mulch over the dirt and putting a nice container of flowers there?
posted by Ostara at 4:18 PM on July 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yup, you need mulch. If you get a lot of weeds, lay down cardboard first, and then a really thick layer of mulch. It will look instantly 10X better.

If you provide your zone and what kind of sun it gets, you might get some easy shrub recs.
posted by nanook at 4:59 PM on July 2, 2013

Response by poster: nanook, I am in Zone 7a (Tennessee) and the shrub is on the east, so it gets a lot of morning sun and some afternoon sun as well.

There's a terrible mole problem here, also -- would that affect the shrub's health, or are moles just a gardening pest?

Thanks for these recs everyone, I am going to look up stuff about pruning and see if I can give it a shot, though I have long feared (as jon1270 said) that it is at death's door.
posted by Locative at 5:15 PM on July 2, 2013

It's not at death's door. More like permanently disfigured, unless Ostara's suggestion to cut it to the ground and see if it grows back works out. I've never pruned one that enthusiastically.
posted by jon1270 at 5:33 PM on July 2, 2013

Response by poster: Going to go look at ground cover options at the local nurseries in the next few days, but could any of the plants I already have on my patio in pots also work in that barren soil spot? I currently have potted Catnip, Mint, Basil, Dill, Scotch Moss, Lemon Ball Sedum, Marigolds, Boxwood Basil, Celosia, Rosemary, Plumosa Fern...any of those possible to spread through cuttings?

Thank you, all!
posted by Locative at 7:15 AM on July 3, 2013

Check out ornamental sumac. 'Gro-lo' Rhus aromatica is a goody and loves crap soil dry or wet. It makes a pretty groundcover and, surprise, aromatic. I use it extensively in trouble areas when I need an aggressive shrubby cover. Also, salt tolerant.
posted by greenskpr at 4:28 AM on July 6, 2013