Background: Purchased a home from an elderly man whose deceased wife was clearly a gardener, but who let the yard get badly overgrown after she passed. Now I need to differentiate between what should go and what should stay, and I have NO plant experience whatsoever, so some of these may be super easy for you experts. Common names are fine. 1.) Growing up between the 2 garages. 2.) Definitely intentional landscaping bush on the front yard, but I still don't know what it is, and it's getting pretty huge. Should I at least prune it somehow? Thanks!
2 looks like a Hosta, but not that attractive a one, and in a strange place. They're nice in plantings in shady areas, have flowers but are usually grown with other plants for either leaf interest or to provide a background for other flowers. If you have an area that doesn't get much sun, where you'd like something that doesn't mind the lack of light, I'd suggest moving it. It spreads, but it's not invasive. The leaves might look better where they don't get parched. You can cut off all the leaves when they die for the winter and it will send up new shoots in the spring.
So: kill one and prune down the other in winter. We're not ready for planning where things will get planted yet, just subtraction for now. It's a big yard, that alone is an endeavor! Getting ready to post some more pictures, thanks everyone!
The hosta will die to the ground in winter. If you can figure out where you want it to grow, you might want to divide the plant next Spring or even this Fall. Here is a nice page from the Hosta Library on that. http://hostalibrary.org/misc/div/ Lots more info on the Web about dividing hostas and other plants.
