Over a third of my front yard is dominated by two hedge plants, azaleas and boxwood. The space between my house and the front door walkway has a row of azaleas lined with boxwood on the walkway side. On the front side of the walkway, a row of azaleas runs all the way from the driveway to the east end of the house. Boxwood lines the azalea row on both sides in front of the walkway and only on the front side the rest of the way.
The tree species I call Kusamaki (Podocarpus macrophyllus) lives on either side of the garage door and in front of the wall that extends past the eastern end of the house. In the spring of 2017, a trashline orbweaver spider occupies a small area on the driveway side of the kusamaki in the picture below.
Here is a view down my front door walkway. In the spring, it often has spider webs across it, and I have gotten into the habit of waving an arm out in front of me as I walk through it. In February and the beginning of March 2017, tropical orbweaver spiders were the only ones in that space, and across the walkway on the other side of the driveway. In late March 2017, orchard spiders seemingly took over the entire lot, most conspicuously among the hedges. No tropical orbweavers are to be seen anywhere.
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I can walk between the house and the azaleas as long as I remove new plants that start to grow there. Here is the view from my front porch to the driveway. The ground under and around the azaleas is covered with a thick layer of oak leaves. I have raked some out a few times since I moved here in 2013.
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Here is the view from the front porch to the eastern end of the house. The boxwood continues all the way up to the house on this side of the walkway.
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Here is a view of the main hedge row from the driveway. Kusamaki trees are at the left end of the photo and the far side of the house.
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The eastern end of the hedge goes to the property line.
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The eastern end of the house has a small wall. The kusamaki on this side aligns with the wall instead of the house. Since I haven't trimmed it much, it now grows out past the wall.
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The azalea-boxwood hedge row continues on the west side of the driveway. In the fall of 2016, one of the azaleas died, possibly from a shortage of water and spider mites. In 2014, an eastern redbud tree appeared from between the boxwood and the azaleas.
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The western edge of the hedge goes right up to the property line. To walk around it, I have to go into the neighbor's yard. There is a gap in the boxwood row. One of them must have died some time ago.
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The narrow walkway from the driveway along the side of the house to the backyard gate is tightly bordered by the hedges. This area is often filled with spider webs. Sometimes I pull them down, but I often walk around the hedge instead. There is a gap between the walkway and the azaleas on the right of this photo. Either the person who did this landscaping left space for a row of boxwood but never put one there, or else the boxwood died or was removed sometime later.
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