Ahhhh...now I see it.  No wonder you were having wet spots.  Was it running all the time? Or just when the system came on for that zone?  

It's kind of crazy, the stupid I see when I'm out working in landscapes.  Never saw that level of "just don't care" except for once.  I will post about that here when I can get the time to do it.

Better bump this.

got some new software for design. Trying to learn to use it to render better than my hand drawings.

Sorry for the delay, y'all.

Bump for designs

So...will there be any line of cleared land between the shrubs and the forest?

This is hard row to hoe for any shrub, because it's going to be largely shaded (The forest will encroach) on one side, but it will take some sun on the other side, which means it will never be a fully formed, full, thick shrub.  You've stated the sun/shade ratio in your question. But you also say that some of it is facing north, which means there will likely be NO full sun on that portion, right?  

So...some thoughts and questions...

1-Are you determined to have the same plant for the entire hedge?

2-Azalea or Rhododendron (if it will grow there) might indeed be a good fit, but you are going to need to keep the woods from taking it over.  So you need a plan for that...maybe a mowing strip that you mow each time you mow your yard, between the shrubs and the woods.  You need to understand that you are never going to get any significant blooms from this hedge.  There is not enough light for that.

3-So here's  a question.  WHY do you want this?  Do you not like the look of the woods?

Are you just wanting blooms there for the two weeks you will have them?

Or what?

No judgement in this question at all.  I'm just wanting to understand more about what you're after by planting this hedge/barrier.



A lot depends on your "why" answer...why do you want this hedge.

That will change the suggestion I might make.  So I need to know what's useful for you.

Okay, welcome @Scoobysmak !  

So to even address your issues, I'm going to need to know more.

First...Bluegrass needs SUN.  Not shade.  So your tree being gone is TERRIBLE because you don't have shade..but for any normal turfgrass specie, that's a good thing.  

Second...you're pretty far south for bluegrass I'm thinking.  You mentioned fescue and bluegrass, but as far south as you are, most lawns in your area are probably fescue or bermuda, right?  Maybe I'm dead wrong, so...If you will tell what region you live in (nearest city, or which regions of which state or something) that will help a lot.

THIRD:...

Once I understand the region you're in, and the grass types, I can help a little more, but...YOU ARE APPROACHING YOUR SEEDING TIME.  

If you're going to seed turf-type tall fescue or bluegrass, you've got probably a month or so to get ready.  

I'm in southern KY.  An hour north of Nashville.  I will need to seed by the end of September.    And I'm in zone 6.

So you've got  a little more time, but I have no idea how much, cuz I don't know where you are.  

Seeding rules:

1-Buy the best seed you can afford.  If you're only spot seeding areas where you  will be digging, and you really don't care about the quality of your lawn, then buy seed at the big box stores or somewhere local.

If you actually care and want to have an awesome lawn at some point, buy better seed.  There are a LOT of reasons to buy better seed. But if you don't really care, I won't type those out.

2-Don't use straw to cover the seed unless you don't care that there are weeds in your lawn.  

Some of those weeds that come in with straw are spawn from hell. They are alpha weeds like Johnsongrass.  Weeds you cannot kill with any herbicide that does not kill your lawn.  If it's Johnsongrass, it may be Roundup Ready Johnsongrass, which you cannot kill with glyphosate (Roundup).  The weeds that come in with straw are high-level demon weeds.  I would avoid straw at all costs.  SO.....

If you actually care about the lawn, cover the seed with peat moss.  You can buy it in bales at Lowes or Home Depot for about $8 a bale.  A bale goes a good long way.   You can also use Scott's Patch Master, but that's more expensive. It's wonderful. But you may not want to pay for it.  You don't have to cover every square inch with this. It expands as you add water, to cover and protect the seed.

3-You are going to have to water, so be prepared to set up a sprinkler of some kind to water your seeds EVERY DAY.

Not "Oh I forgot" for two days.  EVERY DAY.

Those seeds, without water, are throwing money into a hole and never seeing them again.

Not meaning to be the voice of doom, but this is not a set it and forget it thing.

Seeds need water to germinate and grow into plants large enough to actually root and survive.

4-You need a starter fertilizer. This is something that includes phosphorus.  Every store that sells fert will have a "starter fert" on the shelf.  It'll be something lower in Nitrogen (the first number on the bag) and it will be higher in phosphorus (the middle number on the bag.)

So if you don't understand this...

10-10-10

That's equal parts NItrogen, PHosophorus, and Potassium.

10-15-20

the 10 is Nitrogen (first number on the bag)

The 15 is Phosophorus (second number on the bag)

The 20 is potassium. (Third number on the bag)

You want something like a 5-10-5

Or a VERY common one is 18-24-12.

See the middle number is higher?

That's what you want.

If you go and buy a bag of Scott's starter fert, you will be rockin it.

Spread that over your new grass either at the time of seeding OR (especially if it's bluegrass) a little later.  Bluegrass takes about 21 days to germinate. It's a pita.  If it's fescue, that's 8-10 days.  

So about a week to 10 days after you seed, spread the starter fert.  GEt one of those little hand spreaders with the crank handle.  Set it on whatever the bag recommends.  Don't just dump it out there.  Get it right.


5-Water.

Yes, I know this was number 3.  But it's also number 5 because you can't blow this part off.

You have to water EVERY DAY from the day you seed until that seed is two weeks old. So with bluegrass, you're looking at almost five weeks.  Six is better.

Get a sprinkler that covers the whole area. Get a timer. Set it and forget it.  BUT....check and make sure it's actually working.


Okay does that help?

Ask questions.  Tell me where you actually ARE, and I can help you more.

Okay...so I'm getting that from your home, you are looking at the woods, and the tree tops are okay, even in the winter when they lose leaves, but what you DON'T like is the view of the deep dark expansive hole at the bottom of the trees...that vast chasm of nothingness that is the ground in the woods, which kind of feels like an endless portal into emptyness when you look into it..

Is that right?

You want to have a barrier between you and that?

(I might have had wine, and might be a little dramatic....)

ETA:  @Billith777 how much distance do you have between the house and the treeline?

@billith777

Look at this link.

Spend some time with it.

Look at the heights, and for practical purposes, assume the azalea will hit about the middle of whatever they say is the range.


Look at the water requirements. (No azalea likes to have wet feet all the time, so if the soil in the area we are talking about does not drain, take that into consideration.)  

Give each of these more than a glance. READ them.  Read what they say the requirements are.

Then we can talk about what might be right for you.  I have a hunch that one of these PLUS something else will be your perfect solution.

13 types of azalea

Congratulations on your year!!!!

Okay so we need to make your lawn as low maintenance in summer as possible, right?

We can do that.

I recommend Emerald Green Arborvitae and/or Leyland Cypress for the border between you and your neighbors.  

This recommendation comes without ever seeing your property, so there is a lot I do not know.
I you want to post pics, I will be of more help, I love love LOVE the Chattanooga area, so it will do my heart good to help if I can.  

If I did not live here, I would want to live where you live.  

So do not go bluegrass.  Go fescue.  It will struggle in your heat, but bluegrass will check out completely in the summer, I'm guessing.

FIRST...get your yard graded so the water does not run toward your home.

If you want to send me pics in the IM rather than post them on the forum, that's okay. I will help that way too.

First...grading..

Second...plant trees/privacy barrier

Third...seed grass.

You have a lot to do.

Mechanical aeration is good but I would not pay for that at this point, and because your hillside is fragile I would not run the slit seeder over it.  HOWEVER...you need a backpack sprayer.   I would get the Field King Professional, or the Field King Max (either is $70-80) and it will serve you for many, many seasons and purposes if you maintain it.  You can get it on amazon.  

Yes you can get the liquid aeration, and although I have not seen your site, I would at least attempt that first.  

You can get Air8 from Greene County Fertilizer.  

They have TWO distributors for homeowners.  I know both of the distributors and they are both awesome people, so choose whichever one works for you.  

Allyn Hayne the Lawn Care Nut, or Pete at GCI Turf.

Both are linked here:

Greene County Fert Products for Homeowners

So get some Air8.  Read the label.  Put it in your backpack sprayer at the highest label rate, and spray your lawn.  

Then wait three weeks, and spray it again.

If you don't have vegetation covering your lawn completely, you are going to need to seed with something.  Make sure you do that.  


Tell me more. Ask questions.  I will help if I can.

You can do this.

Bumping.

Think since I have been AWOL, I should post a few of the projects that have kept me away.

Can't post many because I don't have the permission of the clients. But I will blurr out the location and post what I can.

Gotta upload pics...

@Greengiant  

Did you have any success with your wet hillside?

Don't hide. I've been AWOL the better part of this year for life--some good some suckish--so I'm the one who should be ducking behind the couch.

ETA:  Fixing my brain fart. I was looking at two posts, and got yours mixed up with bilith's.


It is okay to apply the liquid aeration now.  In fact, I would do so.  

I would also plan to do this throughout the spring.

BUT...be aware that the thing that will dry out your hill the best....AND hold your soil the best...is a good crop of grasses.

So talk to me about what you plan to put there.

It does not need to be anything very delicate.

@billth777  Did you do anything with this plan for azaleas yet?

You are so correct.  It never stops.  I typed a thing, thinking I was typing to GreenGiant, but then realized he was wet hill, you were azaleas.

Anyway, here it is, should you need it:



It's a good time to plant shrubs if your ground is still workable.


One thing about planting shrubs---especially azaleas or boxwoods--if you have heavy clay:

Plant those azaleas shallow. I mean don't be afraid to leave half the rootball sticking up above the extisting ground, then get some cheap bagged topsoil (there is some at Home Depot for 1.67 per bag that I've been using that is really good--no big chunks in it) and use that bagged soil to build up around the top of the ball.  

The reason you want to do this is because even though you are on a hill, sometimes the soil drains and sometimes it doesn't.  (Counterintuitive, I know). You don't want azaleas to have wet feet.  They are VERY sensitive to that. So it's an old landscaper's trick (though I see it suggested often everywhere) to plant the shrub shallow, and build up around the rootball.  Then mulch really well.  (since the ball is basically partly exposed, it's very important to not only build up around that ball so all roots are in fact in some type of soil media and then also protect the new planting with mulch.

So....pay attention to each hole you dig.  Even in mostly good soil you can hit a vein of heavier, denser, wetter soil.  Don't sink those azaleas deep.  Think "good drainage is key, even on this hill."

Ask questions if I've confused you.  

I actually just did an entire landscape this way.   I'll post pics here in a bit if I can get them fixed so house numbers don't show.

Planting Shallow--

An important skill when planting in heavy soils--you MUST know your plants and what they need, but it is almost always better to plant shallow than to plant too deep unless your soil is absolutely perfect.

So I will use a recently completed project to try to illustrate planting shallow.  The photos aren't very good because it's hard to see how high I actually left the plants.  But I will try to illustrate.

Here I had a project that was requested and designed in the late summer.  I was too busy then to begin, but I did the design on the computer at that point, so there will be a difference in "seasons" in the surrounding landscape, if any of that is visible.

This is a high-end subdivision where I've recently done a fair bit of work.  Happy to be there because the customers can generally afford to take my suggestions.  

Not so happy to be there because it is, without question, the worst soil I have ever seen. It's not subsoil.  Even calling it soil at all is a stretch.  It is the C profile at best, all just dumped to make hills for building sites.  All the good soil in this development was stripped and put on the golf greens behind the houses pictured.  The builders made NO attempt to even put any topsoil down.  It's just all chunky, rocky crap.  I've never seen anything like it, and I've finally learned to price this work triple.  I nearly lost money on this job because a-impossible soil and b-fiber optic cables are placed right under the sod.  And they come and mark them...but they lie.  (Yup, I hit one with a shovel.)

Anyway...

Here is the initial project.....One side anyway.  There were two of these ugly-as-hell groupings of utility enclosures.  One on each side of this lady's house.



So for this one, I drew up a plan in my design program (it's new to me--I was drawing by hand as of last year--so the learning curve is steep)

Here's what I pitched to her:



She wanted to save some money and asked if the footprint could be smaller and the bed less elaborate to that end.   So I took out the Green Velvet boxwoods on the perimeter, shrunk the bed and gave her a dumbed-down version of the plan, with less expensive boxwood cultivars for the focal point in the center.  



The point of this post, though, is that the soil was....untenable.  It was only slightly better than planting in solid rock.  I don't mean gravel.  I mean giant rocks.  It is the worst soil I've ever seen in 56 years of observing soils.  

If I could have done so, I would have brought in a hoe, and just dug out all the ground, 3' deep, for ten feet around these box installations, and dumped in some actual topsoil.



Obviously I could not do that.

But I also could not plant these shrubs (those boxwoods in the photos were $100 each) and kiss them goodbye, knowing they would all die.  Boxwoods need good drainage.  This is my reputation on the line. I can't just do shit work and walk away.  That's not what I do.  I support what I install.


So what I did was...

I dug the "soil" up best I could between the cables and power lines (there was a lot of prayer involved ), dug in soil amendments,  and I installed the plants in very shallow holes.

As I dug, I dumped the disgusting rock-like "soil" into the middle, so I was basically regrading the site.  

You can see the grass in the photo below. That's the actual grade.  It's hard to make out, but the boxwoods are actually sitting in about 4" deep holes.   The rest of the soil around them is what I brought in, in bags, and piled around them. Then I mulched heavily.  So the plants are 6- 8" above the surrounding grade.  

NOTE:  I will water these plants though the winter, and feed the root development.  And I *still* don't know if they will make it. Because the roots may hit that shit soil and say, "nope...can't go there."  

The saving grace is that these people have irrigation systems.  So the plants will not go without rain for long periods in the growing season.

So here is the photo.  Even the ornamental grasses, which can survive anything usually, were installed "high" and sort of "heeled in" with topsoil, so this installation is its own little "hill" above the actual grade, which is a horrible, mind-bending rock that does not drain. (yeah, it stays wet a long time).



I actually don't know that this installation will work.

but I did my best and am hoping.

The in the final installation  (Just last week--so November when everything is bare) we went from this:



To this:




So the lesson here:

is that if you have heavy or wet soils...

Don't plant stuff deep.  Plant shallow, and build up around the plant.

Give the plant an opportunity to drain so it's not drowning.

There is another method where you could dig out a very big hole and put rocks in the bottom (as a drain basin) and then plant on top of that, but I don't like that method much.  I'd rather have the plants set high.  But...that means I have to take care of those plants in summer, since drought can affect them more.

Ask questions. Argue with me.  

There are always other ways to do things.

Interested in anybody's take on keeping plants from drowning in heavy soils, when you cannot amend the soil substantially.

@Scoobysmak

Have you been able to make progress?

Did I answer what you needed?  Feel free to poke at the answer and let us know what you need different, or if I didn't make sense.

Kitties

This year has sucked for many of us, with or without Covid interference.

No matter.

Let us approach the issue of drainage around your home, and your border privacy plantings, when you are able.

REally glad you were not hurt in the accident!!!!

It is high time I updated this.

We have been snowed in for a bit, and I am trying to figure out my lawn care program for the upcoming season.

I will admit, I lost a couple of weeks to a low mental state because of happenings in our country.

That is all I will say about that.

It is time to start thinking about gardens, planting things, and pruning things.

NOW is the time to prune things like hydrangeas (most of them, anyway), in my area. (There are a few varieties of hydrangeas you don't need to prune now, so if in doubt, ask.)

Now is the time to cut down your ornamental grasses (if you dont' have snow--if you have snow, cut them down as soon as the snow melts).

Now is the time to think about what changes you are going to make to your landscape, and to plan out time to edge your beds, and set aside a few dollars to buy mulch and install it.

Edging beds is a whole discussion.  Ask if you don't know how.  I might talk about that anyway.

@ barnbwt

You are on the right track elevating your beds.

Amending the soil is an awesome plan.  BUT...I will say that raised beds DO that.  If you break up the clay, then put in raised beds, and grow things in those beds, over time you will improve the soil beneath those beds.  OVER. TIME.  That can not be emphasized enough. It won't happen next week or this year, but you WILL improve those soils. Especially if you mulch between the raised beds.  You will be improving that whole piece of land.

Even though all my photos are gone, I am bumping this, in hopes of saving it.  

another bump...

Cuz people seemed interested in this..

Until..you know...all the photos disappeared.

Did you ask me for that already?

If so, please link to that post.  

I apologize.  Been a long year.  

Got your IM.  Post up some photos if you want this to happen in the thread.  If not, and you are concerned with Persec,  IM them.  

Bumping because pages seem to be getting cut on forums.  Lot of work here.

Bumpity bump cuz....season will be here soon.

Bumping for landscaping season.  It is upon us.

Do you have the option of doing both fence AND plantings?

I ask because if you're talking about firethorn, that's quite an undertaking because it's serious business to prune it, or manipulate it in any way. And if there are small children in the picture, even though I believe in letting kids learn about the real world by experiencing it, firethorn is harsh.

ETA: If you'd like to email me the pics, I can resize them for you so they will upload more easily.

Let me know and we can IM.  No pressure. I know that's a security issue for many.

My choice for you would be both.  Let me take a look at the other photos.

Yes.

Give me a bit. I've got to get this image off of here so I can draw on it.

So. Not. Techy.


@Jchewie1  Is this existing beds, or proposed layout?

Apologies to all here.  Had a little medical issue that has slowed me down recently.

I will go back and attempt to address the last few questions.