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Oh Mrs. B, I am SOOO jealous...a clean slate!
Looking at your 1st picture, what stands out to me first is the slope to your yard that can be fixed with a low retaining wall built from stone or brick---a raised bed of shorts that will give you a clean line to work with. I would start at the point where your driveway meets the area moving towards your front porch and work towards the opposite end of the house. Making that a level area to draw your eye to will help bring your landscaping together....then you can start figuring out what plants to put in there. A beautiful weeping tree would look nice on the end of the house without the drivway, some grasses for movement, some evergreens for bones and then an assortment of flowers for color...eu, I'd love to come help you! You need to find someone who lives by you who loves to express themselves through gardening so they can share all that with you. I hope you keep up posted on this, I would love to see the transformation!
I would plant azalea bushes. Just enough cover to fill everything in, but during the season will give you a punch of color. Low maintainability, yet still green. You can always plant flower beds in front of them, and IMO they don't distract from the flowers.
Ms Bentley - my opinion would be to add one, two ornamental (but not over-powering) trees on either side in the yard to give you a bit of shade, or to create a flagstone/brick path coming out toward the street with defined gardens incorporating a fountain or substantial stonework bath/statue on either side. I don't mean matchy-matchy and perfectly symmetrical, but something that will gently frame the house from the front and might carry to one side...consider refined planting beds nearer to, as someone else mentioned, to add some dimension - but not actually against the house if going large scale. Check the anticipated 'full growth' sizing and add one or two feet to that between siding and shrub. Space to allow circulation and grooming, be able to get behind the plants. No sense creating a moisture issue...rotten $iding, no fun.
Make certain you plant whatever can take your weather...do you have sprinklers? Do you have the time to water every other day...all that. I think you get more rain than we do up here, at least that's what the Doppler likes to suggest.
Oh - in the meantime, if you have room to keep them somewhere come winter, maybe get a few ornate planters/large pots (fitting your style) and fill those with wonderful things to set by the walkway so you don't feel so barren. Next year they can go in the back yard to cheer that up.
How do you feel about iron window boxes or something fancy hanging from that entrance overhang?
We have an island in our front yard that has barberry, crepe myrtle, weeping cherry, knockout roses, hostas, and dahlias. It sounds crowded but it really looks nice. Make sure that you leave enough room for everything that you select. We made the mistake of putting too much in our island, and we had no idea that the crepe myrtle would travel. Instead of just one, it became five and they had to be taken out.
I would second Hartwell Girl's idea of a retaining wall. I just built one when I expanded a bed we have in front and we like it. Our yard starts out low on the right/north side, gets a little higher towards the middle than slopes back down. I ran the wall around the side of the house where the ground slopes back up so I made it sort of tiered. Ours is more of a border than an actual wall for the most part because it ended up being over 100' long and I didn't want a fortress or Great Wall of China look. I had some qualms about the size but I just figured "Eh, less grass to mow."
I don't know what I'll do with the smoke bush when it gets bigger. My wife brought it home and basically said "I love this plant, please find a place for it. Tried to explain that the suckers get to be pretty big, but...Well, I enjoy domestic bliss and try to keep it that way. She also liked the eagles she saw while thumbing through a catalog of woodworking plans I had, soooo...Well, you get the idea.
That's another thing to keep in mind, size planning. Generally you want larger plants towards the back, more moderately sized around the middle then fill in the front and any open spots with smaller ones or annuals. I added about 8 feet to our front and had to do some shuffling of my own after finishing the wall, so it's a work in progress.
ok, just not sure what to do here, any suggestion would be great...thanks!!!!!
Once again THANK YOU for all of your help and advice! had it not been for you guys I would have been planting this coming up weekend. Now I am going to wait till the fall and put a little more time and thought in this. I guess I was wanting instant gratification and in gardening it takes time and thought.
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Next year they can go in the back yard to cheer that up.
Hello, i need some major help here!!
