Hello-

I live in Cedar Park, have a large corner lot, am lazy and on a tight
budget. On the west side of the house is a 100' long wooden privacy
fence that sits on a cement base and runs north/south. Between the
fence and the street is a 10 foot wide strip of grass that I'm tired
of mowing and weed eating along the fence line. The strip goes back
84', then there's an 10' cement strip that was a side entrance to the
yard (no longer used, gate is now part of fence but don't have time,
money or energy to remove the cement), beyond that is another 6' strip
that ends where the neighbor's side yard begins.

I was thinking about a third of the way out from the fence, putting in
some low maintence shrubs evenly spaced along the 84' strip and one or
two in the 6' strip. When I saved up some more money, a second phase
of putting a circle of stone or bark around each bush and maybe a four
or five inch strip running along the fence (to reduce weed eating).
The last phase would to put in some sort of edging about a third of
the way in from the street and filling in the rest of the area between
the edging and the fence with stone/bark.

Does this sound like something that would look attractive - I'm
worried it may be too much stone/bark. Is stone or bark a better
choice? Any good plant recommendations? When's the best time to put
the plants in? If I'm totally off base, please tell me. I don't mind
putting in an initial amount of hard work and some dedicated clean-up
(trimming/pruning) a couple of times a year if it keeps weekly
maintence down. Plus I think the neighbors might enjoy looking at
something other than three foot tall weeds growing up against the
fence and a weed infested strip of grass.

TIA

Get a copy of the Grow Green guide to "Native and Adapted Landscape
Plants" which is a good start. It is a free guide, put out by the City
of Austin's Grow Green program in conjunction with the Texas
Cooperative Extension office of A&M.
Many nursery's are giving it out free, but might be hard to find in
Cedar Park, maybe they can mail you one if you check their web site
at:
www.growgreen.org

In addition I would go with an organic, over stone mulch. There are
plusses and minuses either way, just a personal preference.

Steve Coyle
www.austingardencenter.com