DIY Network

The Hines: Their Plan, Costs and Products From "Garden Sense" episode DGAR-107

Meet the Hines family. Bill and Dawn run their own business called Georgia Medical Gases. They supply medical gas to physicians, surgical centers, and veterinarians and are the largest supplier in the Atlanta metropolitan area...

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Their daughter is president of the business.

Bill and Dawn each had two children when they married and blended the family together 23 years ago. Interestingly, their two oldest children introduced them. One of their children lives in Canada. Two children live within a mile and a third lives nearby.
The couple has eight grandchildren.

Dawn's grandmother taught her to garden. She had a mail-order nursery in Madison, Florida, until she was in her 80s. She sold daylilies, jessamine and other plants. Her grandfather grew camellias. Dawn spent summers with her grandparents who had five acres of gardens and Dawn was an avid student. Dawn's grandmother was the first environmentalist she knew.

Dawn's husband, Bill, is recovering well from knee surgery.
Dawn is an AVID fan of Walter Reeves. She listens to him weekly and also has attended a broadcast or two.

Before

After

Gardening Challenge

Here is the challenge our Garden Sense expert faced with this project.

• Creating a softer garden at a formal home
  
• Removing the meatball-looking shrubs that were popular in the 70s and 90s and replace them with more up-to-date plantings.
  
• Replacing the hollies with some shrubs and plants that are prettier and more important.
  
• Adding variety. Dawn had dozens of plants of her grandmother's at her other house, but couldn't bring herself to move them.

Required Project Time
The Formal to Freeform project took us about six hours due to all the help from the family.

Sensible Tips for Less Formal Gardens

• Don't line up shrubs like soldiers
  
• Add curved lines to beds
  
• Use containers for new plantings
  
• If soil conditions are bad, buy extra soil

Project Details

• The plan concentrates on softening the formal landscape, giving Dawn plants that are inviting to touch and not so symmetrical.
  
• We've added many different shrubs and plants in the landscape.
  
• The meatball-looking shrubs were removed a few days before our show. We replaced them with lots of interesting shrubs including 20 pink gumpo azaleas.
  
• Other shrubs adding interest and softness include 'Steeds Upright' hollies, 'Shirobana' spirea and 'Emerald Green' arborvitae.

Gardening by Zip Code If you're looking to start a gardening projectbut don't know your gardening zone—visit the National Gardening Associations's USDA Hardiness Zone Finder. Enter your Zip Code to identify the proper zone.

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