🦌Talk & Tour: Front Yard Garden with Deer-Resistant Plants | Designer Tips + Landscaping Plant List

Hey everyone, I'm here with Ellen Goldfarb in her New Jersey garden today and last year Ellen joined us on one of our English garden tours and as we were talking about her garden and looking at photos on together we knew we needed to visit her so here we are today. I'm so glad we could make this. Oh I am too. Yeah this is fun. So tell me a little bit about your business. Okay, when I was living in Arizona and I had two kids then. Tracy was two. She's my daughter that works with me now and I felt like what am I going to do now? You know it's not enough to just be home with the kids and I just made a list of things that I loved the most and it was working in my garden. So I had been a music teacher and that had nothing to do. I had never taken any art courses or anything like that so I took some courses at a community college on bidding techniques and oh and some art classes and some landscape design classes and I went around to some nurseries and somebody hired me and so I went out and started designing for them like freelance. So you have a crew of about you said eight. There's eight people now and you do design and installations and maintenance and maintenance for gardens here. We do everything except lawns. Okay. We do any lawn. Well we put down sod but that's the only lawn thing we do. And your garden is sort of a display garden. Yeah for trying things. Yeah. Because I like to I like to have used a plant myself and have experience with it before I put it in someone else's garden. So you try everything here first? Oh yeah. That's great. So your front yard was a blank slate when you moved here is that right? Right. Yeah so tell me how long ago was that? 30 some? Yeah about 38 almost 40 years ago. Oh wow okay. So how did it start? How did how did you start changing your front yard? First I took out all the shrubs all the foundation planting and I just wanted to have flowers and things had bloomed and and we had a big lawn and the oh I know first mistake I made was I made a I made a bed on that side and I mowed the lawn and I put down the grass as mulch and I didn't realize that it had rhizomes in it. We had Bermuda grass. Oh gosh. No not Bermuda grass. Zoysia. Oh yeah. Zoysia grass and it wrecked the whole garden. Oh gosh. And the other thing was I asked the town had this free topsoil so I got that in and it was full of nut grass seeds. So you fought weeds? Yes they're still nut grass. Oh gosh. You never get rid of it except by using more invasive plants than nut grass. So it's packed with plants here? It's packed because I'm real glutton. This is a gluttonous garden. So but there's a lot of structure here too. Yeah. So I mean there's a lot a lot of different plants but you have some very carefully thought out structure here as well. So of course to start with there are plants that are structured. You have the boxwoods and several shrubs. You said that initially you took out all the shrubs right? Yeah and then I learned the value of shrubs for structure. As a matter of fact I had this one client who she was trying to screen a house and I wanted her to use you know some some evergreen as a screen and she said oh I only want blooming things. And I said well in your house you have walls. You know you have pictures on the walls. You have things furniture and things like that. But if you took your walls away you'll have nothing. So right well that's a good way of thinking of it. It's the floor and the walls and the right you know the doorways and you know all the structural. So you need that. Yeah so and then you have you have terraces. Yeah. You have walls. So it used to be a slope just a it was a gentle slope. Okay. But enough of a slope that I could do the walls because I really wanted the walls. I was doing it on job. I wanted to have things in my own garden that I was designing. Like I I would design someone's garden and I would love it. And I would come home and mine was like so I wanted to have the things that I was you want to be right and doing. Right exactly. Do you ever bring clients here? Yeah. Yeah to show them this is how this looks. But sometimes it backfires. So how's that? One one woman called me and she said she said I've seen your work. No no she didn't say I've seen your work. She saw an ad on houses or something like that. And so I gave her various addresses. And I gave her mine. And she drove by and then she she wrote me and she said I don't think I want your services because your yard is much more chaotic than what I would want. Right. But that's my house. Every client is different. You are a client. You are a different client. Right. Yeah. And that's funny. And if you go to all my jobs I think you see that they're different. They are. So definitely try to work with what people want. Right. So when do you have I know some designers have sort of signature plants or signature looks. What are what would you say are some of your signatures? Well I love boxwoods. I love shapes. You know I love the balls. The cones. You know I like that stuff. Right. Well I love I love flowers. And I have a palette that I love to use. But I think I've learned through the years that they need to play off of other other you can't have more you can't have a whole garden full of divas. Right. That's a good way of putting it. So one diva is enough and then stars and then the supporting actors. Okay. The supporting actors are the boxwoods and things like that. Okay. Yeah. But without them it would just be a big flowery bouquet of mess. Right. Right. So and the evergreens give you something to look at in the winter. Yeah. That's nice. And so when I'm designing I now I design usually I make a palette of what I want to use flowery wise. But then I put in my evergreens first. Okay. And then once that is down that framework is down then I go and work around that framework. Okay. Design around that. Yeah. So so the boxwoods of course. What are some of your favorite flowers? Oh roses. There are some flowers I've learned to live without because of the deer. Deer is a big problem here. Deer a big problem. So lilies and daylilies have been I've been substituting alliums and more grasses more ferns. Bee balm. Things that the deer don't eat. Yeah. That makes sense. And learning to love things that I didn't use before. And even on a street like this and in a in your front yard you you have deer. Oh yeah. Right here. Yeah. Yeah. I think of that as something that people who live in a more wooded setting deal with. But it's there there are there are parks nearby and. Yeah. So they they come from there. Right. Yeah. They're they're here. They're bold. They're here. They're hungry and they're here. I think these rock walls are so interesting. You said something to me a little bit ago that really struck me about how you think of terraces. I think that terraces are like stages for the plants. And so each it divides the garden into in my in my case it's in three sections. Okay. The top the middle and the bottom and then the very edge you know is it's like a little stage for each section. It is. It really shows things off well. Right. And it allows them to kind of have some presence in each case. And then you can also use certain plants that you couldn't use if it was just a flat garden. You can have the little creepers that are coming through the rock wall. That's right. And things that cascade over the wall. It's just a way to create more interest. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And then in the wintertime I mean right now you don't see as much of the walls because. Right. The plants are covering or they're you know interacting with it. But in the wintertime I imagine you see a lot more of it. So it just makes it again more interesting. Then you have the evergreens and the walls. Yeah. So it gives you something else to look at. I like that a lot. So you were telling me about some of your favorite plants. The summer beauty for example or the Alliums. Yeah. And I've noticed some Heconicloa. Yeah I love Heconicloa. In your gardens. I love the color chartreuse. So I just feel like chartreuse it sets off every other color. It really does. It just creates a great contrast and especially in shady. Yeah. Shady gardens. Especially shady gardens. Yeah. That's good. And you have this big hydrangea arborescens over here. Yeah. That's beautiful. That's one of my oldest. I think that's one of the oldest garden plants in the garden. Okay. And I bought it back in the day. Do you remember when they used to sell deciduous plants in like little wrappers? Oh right. Do you remember that? Yeah and with a little box. That's right. Yeah. So that's where I got that and. Oh my gosh. I remember hybrid teas always being sold that way. Hybrid tea roses. But okay. So this is the species. That's the species. Arborescens. And before it was Annabelle. Before they made it better. Before they improved it. New and improved. Right. Yeah. And so the heads are always standing up straight. Okay. And are they a little bit smaller? A little bit smaller. And they start as green. Then they go to white. Then they go back to green. Nice. And then they stay on the plant all winter. Nice. So it's a feature for the winter. Which is really nice. It is nice. That's good. Are there some. And then you have this large Japanese maple right here. Yeah I love Japanese maples. So along with. Maybe Japanese maples are my favorite plant. Are they? If I only could have one plant. It would be a Japanese maple. There would be several Japanese maples. Oh okay. Not just one. Right. Because they're all so different. They are all so different. There's so many different colors. This is Siryu. Siryu. Yeah. And like it's so lacy and soft. There's a little girl who lives in the neighborhood. And when she walks around the block here. Her mother said she always wants to sit under this tree and have a picnic. It is a good spot for that. And then the fall color. There's great fall color on this one too right. It turns orange. It's really pretty. One thing I forgot to mention was the little crimson pygmy barberries. Over here. Yeah. That's kind of to echo the boxwoods that are on this side. And it's a less expensive way to go. Oh right. Yeah. Right. Well and it's just a little bit of variety too. And they're not. There's no problems with being invasive here. Not that I know of. Right. I mean. So. No. So those are safe here. Yeah. And they take pruning. Yeah. And shearing if you want to. Yeah. That's a good plant. So speaking of structure. I just love the clean lines that this big urn in the front yard creates. It's just a great contrast with the all the shapes and organic textures. Thank you. I think I'm always looking for contrast. Okay. And so you know color contrast, texture. And that's the ultimate smooth. Yeah. Smooth and hard. Yeah. Everything else is so soft. Yeah. That's true. It really. It just stands out beautifully. And do you leave it there all year? It's. Yeah. It stays all year. And it gets wrapped up for the winter. To protect. Empty it out. To protect it from frost. Yeah. Cracking. So it looks like this crazy monolith in the winter. That's funny. You have a lot of roses in your garden. And can we just walk around and take a look at a few of them next? Okay. Great. So this is a really old Bonica. Yes. Very old. You can tell she's elderly. Look at those. Her trunk. Her gnarled trunk. It's beautiful though. Isn't it? Yeah. It is. So how do you print it every year? I don't do too much to it. No. Because I'm nervous about it. I just round it off. And occasionally she'll send up. There's a new shoot back there. New cane back there. Okay. Yeah. I see that. But this was a really old shrub rose. When it seemed like maybe it was one of the first shrub roses. Okay. So I think it's about 35 years old or 40 years old. Yeah. In this spot. So, well, it's just beautiful. And then I started using some David Austin roses. Okay. We were in England, my husband and I. And we went to David Austin, the gardens. And I had a half an hour before closing time. So it was like racing around through everything. But I have a lot of David Austin roses. Okay. And they're really nice. And a couple of knockouts and. Okay. And then different modern, more modern shrub roses than the bonica. Right. Okay. Yeah. So interesting. Well, let's go take a look at a few of those. You have these vigorous drift roses here. So this is. This is sweet drift. Okay. And I just love the look of it. It's such a pretty, such a pretty little rose. It is. It's just so floriferous. Yeah. It's very vigorous. So you have to treat it with a tough love. So what do you do? Cut it back hard. Okay. In the spring. So how far do you cut it back? Really low. About to there? Yeah. Nice. And then back here you have the red drift. Is that right? In a standard form. Right. And do you have to do anything special to it to get it through the winter? No, no. Just I prune it hard in the spring. I don't prune in the fall. Okay. And it's fine. They're very hardy. It's a great, it's a great accent plant right in the front. Yeah, I really like that. I do too. It adds to the, kind of the classic nature. It does. Of the garden. It does. I like things, I like organized chaos. You know, I like the garden to look like it's doing its own thing. Yeah. But really on the master, you know, behind the strings. So when things re-seed, you sort of selectively. Yeah. Pull them out and. But mostly I leave them. They're all things that you loved when you, you planted them for a reason. Yeah, great. I'm so glad you could join us for a few minutes too, Tracy. This is great to see you. You too, you too. I'm glad I'm here. So we pulled Tracy away from work so she could show off some of her containers. She's great at doing the containers, but her real specialty right now is doing the succulents. She just really has a knack for them. This is, and this is one of your examples. Yeah. I love this. Thank you. So talk me through your process a little bit in terms of design. Sure. So I always start either in the middle or if the pot is against the wall, I start in the back. Usually with the tallest thing. And then I work forward. And I always try to have something that cascades down. Usually, you know, in the front or on the side here. And I buy succulents depending on color and also the size of the pot. So I don't want all 5-inch because it's really hard to work with it and get them in the nooks and crannies. And the other, I don't buy all little ones because then it looks too minuscule. Yeah. So to get the variety and texture, I look for color contrast. I love how you've got some blues here. Yeah. And then you've got some of these burgundies that are sort of echoing each other. Right, right, and kind of echo each other. This one has little tubes and this one's spiky. And then you've got some chartreuse kind of pots in there. Just to kind of add a little variety. Yeah, that's great. And so you have a mix of sort of crown forming plants with the ones that trail. Right, right. And then some different sort of spiky. I mean, it's just a great mix of textures and colors. I love it. It's a lot of fun. I love doing them. Yeah, it's really a lot of fun. The other thing I also do is add a little sand. So I don't just do straight potting soil. I do like a mix and mostly up by the top where the plants are. Is there a particular ratio that you use? No, I kind of wing it. Yeah, eyeball it. Yeah, just kind of eyeball it. I mean, I want to see the sand, you know, in the top. But it's a great container for people that really don't want to water but have something colorful and interesting. I noticed you've used these in front entrances quite a bit lately. Yes, yes. I love it. It's great. And people seem to like it. I mean, they're always saying I want flowers because of color. Right. But this has color too. It's interesting texture. And again, it's very no maintenance. That's right. Great easy care alternative. Well, it's been so fun to get together with both of you again today. And I'm just so appreciative that you were able to show us your garden. Of course. Thank you for coming. We appreciate it. Glad to be here.