" This plan that you've drawn-up really underscores the importance of bringing a landscape architect into play when you've got this much of a renovation. Because your job is not just to pick the pretty bushes and flowers, but to really blend the architecture with the land, right?"

" I like to think of it as giving the land structure."

" Yes, and indeed we can see on the plan here that the structure is the drive-up and then the new walk which we just put in on a couple of weeks ago, and of course the new approach to the house, where once there was none."

" That's right."

" You never see the front door and this draws your eye to the front door. "

" Draws your eye and lets you know that's the place to go. Well, there was a lot of stuff to study on this site. Let's watch! A couple of weeks ago, Clara was here and she looked at the plant material that we had; figured out what to save and what to get rid off. Well, Clara, we have about a quarter acre lot here and the house really sits on the edge on that land. What's your assessment of what to do with the landscape?"

" Well, as you're walking out the door, you want to have an expanse in front of you. And right now----"

" You're blocked, yeah."

" your view is blocked by this dogwood and the Azaleas."

" Uh huh."

" And you really wanna open this up and provide a [unk] that you can enjoy from the house and give the house really something to sit on."

" Indeed, because practically the whole quarter acres is right in front of us here, but you don't see it from the house because of all these stuff that is in here."

" That's right. And this is wonderful plant material and we can use that and plant it around the edge and provide a shrub border."

" So you can transplant bushes that are this big and kind of scraggly?"

" Oh, sure! These will make great perimeter planting."

" Uh huh."

" It'll give you a nice shrub border. It'll give you a nice privacy around the perimeter of the property."

" Okay."

" And with the backhoe, they won't be very difficult to transfer if at all."

" So that if you have the equipment, you actually can transplant these things."

" That's right."

" I know that Paula, the home owner had the contractors move a lot of the foundation plantings. What is this?"

" This is an Andromeda."

" Uh huh. And, so he has saved them during the course of construction and just healed them in here. And you're saying, you can----"

" We can move these------"

" take the material like these and move it anywhere you want?"

" Right. We can move all the material that's been healed over, we can move it again. We can take the Andromeda. We can take the yews, the hemlock that we see here."

" This big one behind the oak tree?"

" That's right. That's a great screen. It really shields the neighbor's house."

" Yes."

" That's a good place to begin your screening, and then extend the shrubs all along in front of the neighbor's play area."

" So, the idea is to bring lots of this plant material to play along here, maybe even in a curve."

" That's right. A nice sweeping curve will make it very attractive, make it soft."

" So that you could----"

" Give a real definition to the land."

" What about lawn? You can't grow anything in this kind of shade, can you?"

" Oh sure you can! You've got clover growing here, so it must get enough sunlight for lawn."

" Yeah."

" And the land needs to be roto-tilled, aerated, lawn-fertilized. But then you could choose a shade tolerant seed."

" Okay."

" When having in fescue and see this land and you should get a nice lawn. You have to keep the kids off of it for a while."

" For a good month or so. What would you do up closer to the house? It's so bare now?"

" Well, it's, you know, it's a simple farmer's fortune, they wanna call it, but a nice bed of daylilies would really look lovely. They come up early in the spring,----"

" Uh huh."

" last late into the fall. We have some right here."

" We have a bunch of them right here."

" Where these daylilies are, these are so easy to transplant. You just stick them up and practically throw them over in front of the porch."

" In the fall?"

" In the fall. That's a great time to plant."

" So what you're saying is that you could create a bed with something as simple as daylilies----"

" Right. And you could add----"

" right around here? And so you take in some of those things that to begin what is known as a shrub border, right?"

" That's right. Most of these material, we've transplant it."

" What's this one here for example?"

" This is a mongolian azalea. "

" An azalea? "

" Yes."

" It gets rather big. What color does it blooming?"

" It's a light purple and it blooms very early in the spring."

" Early in this spring. Great!"

" That's right."

" And what about that huge one that was under the dogwood in back there?"

" This is one of my favorites. This is a [unk] azalea. It's deciduous. It will lose its leaves. But it's magnificent. It's slow growing, so this is----"

" Yeah."

" a wonderful specimen and has a beautiful shell pink flower."

" [unk]. [unk]."

" That's right."

" That's quite a handle. Then what are the new things that we're putting in?"

" This are Delaware valley white azaleas. They will stay low----"

" Uh huh."

" and they form part of the second layer of your shrub border and help it step down."

" So that the idea is to step down from the big, tall, older specimens down toward the lawn begins?"

" That's right. And these will also hide some of the legginess of the transplanted of plants."