[Carla B]

We started with a "picture perfect" yard that matched the "photo" done on the landscaper's computer program showing our house set amid the beautiful plants. The yard looked like the colorful photo when it was finished. That lasted only a few months, when most of the bushes either took off and grew wildly, or in the case of the loropetalums, got something called a spider mite.

First to go were the knock-out roses. They started off small but seemed to grow so fast you could almost watch them do it. We got rid of the Muhly grass, too, it was too big and messy and I heard that snakes like to hide in it. The two wax ligustrums decided they'd like to be trees and they won. The tree rose didn't want to be a tree, it just liked to sprout suckers alongside it. The two camellias at the front door didn't like that location at all. One never developed beyond the root ball. My husband stuck the survivor on the side of the house where it likes the conditions much better.

Now what's left are low-maintenance, mostly boring, but dependable plants. Variegated pittosporum, which can be kept 2-3 ft. high, boxwood, Indian Hawthorne, dwarf yaupon, Walter's viburnum, Foxtail fern, and encore Azaleas. We replaced some of the loropetalums with healthy ones. Oh, and two wonderful podocarpus now occupy the spot shunned by the camellias, and love it there.

If we had it to do over again, we probably wouldn't do much at all. Lesson learned.