Home Projects
A working board for projects around the house. First up: the backyard — what to plant, where it goes, and what we each think of it.
Backyard Landscape In progress
A backyard landscape for Mike & Carla, aiming for a relaxed Pacific Northwest look: a cluster of trees in the southwest corner and along the fences, a curving shrub line by the patio, and a lawn in the middle.
Plant & Tree Library Click a header to sort · ▾ to filter
Photos: Wikimedia Commons, credits in viewer. Expanded mode shows growing conditions, character, scores, and the editable Carla / Mike columns.
Garden Vignettes
Plant combinations built around what you've rated.
How designers combine plants
Match each plant to the sun, water and soil it will actually get. A beautiful combination of plants that hate the spot will still fail, so this filter comes first.
Stack plants by height: canopy tree, smaller understory tree, shrubs, perennials and ferns, then groundcover, with vines climbing between. It gives the eye somewhere to travel and copies how a PNW forest edge is built.
Plan a relay: spring and summer flowers, fall leaf color, then winter structure from evergreens, bark, berries and seed heads. Something should look good every month, not just in May.
Neighboring colors (blue, purple, pink) feel calm; opposites (purple with yellow, blue with orange) pop. Repeating one color across several plants ties a bed together, and green foliage is the backbone that makes flowers read.
Put fine, feathery leaves next to big, bold ones so both stand out, and mix shapes: something upright, something mounding, something that spills. Container growers call it "thriller, filler, spiller".
Plant in groups of 3, 5 or 7 instead of one of everything, and repeat the same plant in a few spots. Repetition creates rhythm and looks intentional; odd numbers look natural.
Space plants for the size they'll reach in 5–10 years, not the size in the pot. A young bed looks sparse; fill the gaps with mulch or annuals rather than crowding.
Some plants naturally grow together, like Douglas-fir, salal, Oregon grape and sword fern. An edible guild works the same way: a fruit tree with berry shrubs, herbs and an edible groundcover beneath.
Keep something in flower from early spring into fall so pollinators always have food, and add berries, seeds and dense shrubs for birds. Natives usually do this best.
Group plants that want the same care: thirsty with thirsty, drought-tolerant with drought-tolerant. It saves water and keeps one plant from being loved to death next to another.
Some season details are estimated from the plants' bloom and seasonal-interest notes until fuller data is added.
Cards reshuffle automatically every 6 hours, or whenever you hit Regenerate. Changing a rating won't reshuffle them until you do.
Backyard Designs Click to open full size
Where These Came From
The library was built from Pacific Northwest catalogs and references. Claudette wrote the descriptions and notes; the 1–5 scores for cost, availability, popularity and rarity are educated estimates for Seattle-area nurseries, not quotes.
- Great Plant Picks: a juried list of plants proven in maritime Northwest gardens, run by the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle. This was the main source for the catalog picks.
- King County Native Plant Guide: which plants are truly local natives, and how they behave here.
- Oregon State Landscape Plants and NC State Extension Plant Toolbox: size, growing conditions and care details.
- Xera Plants (Portland) and Burnt Ridge Nursery (Onalaska, WA): Northwest nursery catalogs, used for drought-tolerant picks and fruit trees.
- Wikimedia Commons: every photo is freely licensed. Click any photo to see its photographer and license.
Notes & Sync
Edits save in this browser. To share between Mike's and Carla's devices, export and import, or hand the export to Claude to bake into the site.
Likes and notes you add in the table are kept on this device only (there is no server). Export notes downloads a small JSON file; Import notes merges one back in, keeping whichever edit is newer for each plant. Notes that Claude bakes into the site show up for everyone.