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Thanks Agnes! googling today I found that same advice and will definitely use it for one special tree.

Sadly many of the trees and shrubs right around the house have to come down anyway, because we are going to lift the house about 5 feet due to the new Fed elevation maps. (we are getting money for this from our insurance, so that’s OK, or well, tolerable.)

Many of the plants are OK. I’m trying to be a gardener, but I’m pretty amateur so far and I’m too lazy to look things up right now, so bear with my ignorance.

We have one shaggy pine which is lovely and fine, but has to go, but it was ultimately doomed no matter what because it was already basically leaning on the house.

We have some red colored brambly things that stick you badly, they are going (dead or alive) and I won’t miss them.

We have some green fluffy bushes that are also fine, we’re going to try and re-plant them at our neighbors.

We have a Japanese Maple that I hope is OK that we are going to try and save, hubby says he thinks it can stay in place while the house is lifted, but i’m not sure.

I also think the pacysandra (sp???!!) is done, which is a shame because the lady we bought the house from worked hard to get that right.

I gotta say, Sandy was just a huge destructive force and her reverberations are still being felt.

on a more positive note it seems like my tulips and daffodils are still going to bloom, I hope so anyway, it will do my heart good.

You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you!

Let me suggest when you replace stuff try to find a substitute that actually gives you food in return. Instead of little dwarf maples, try dwarf fruit trees. Instead of box hedges, try blueberry or cherry bushes. Upright blackberries do great against a fence as long as they have 7+ hrs of sunlight. The trailing berries also trellis nicely against a chain link fence or some equivalent. Tomatoes and beans or peas (the climbing kind) like to be trellised as well.

I do all this plus my ‘groundcover’ plants are strawberries. I put dwarf pepper plants in amongst my plantings too. Some of those only get about 18” tall. You could easily turn a suburban ‘landscaped yard’ into several hundred square feet of food bearing garden with a bit of effort. And without your neighbors having a clue unless they walk right up to your house. There are lots of dwarf or container varieties of most veggies now.

Since you’re starting anew, try this link:

http://www.rosalindcreasy.com/

She’s got some good ideas and pics. Searching for ‘edible landscaping’ will get you a website that sells plants for this purpose (I have no idea if they’re a reputable business or not) but also other links with pics and ideas. I lived in NJ for a while and if I were paying NJ property taxes I’d be darned sure I got something out of that!

Just a suggestion.