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This post was edited by bradleyheathhays on Tue, May 6, 14 at 0:06

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Replace the walkway,add a fence along the porch,plant hydrangea,boxwood,dogwood,forthia,hosta,j-maple.

I love your brick house. You have some good visions that would work, but they could be expanded on.

I would expand the beds on either side of the front entrance. In doing so, I would stay away from the straight lines, make it a little curvy but not wavy. Bring them up to the walkway (which needs to be addressed as well). about 5'. I think a snowball bush, Annabelle hydrangea and/or bridal veil Spiarea would work good with the brick and white trim. The snowball and hydrangea would be the best choices for the front with the light conditions, while the Spiarea would work for the left side (more sun) It doesn't look like theres room for 3 shrubs on either side but expanding the beds you could bring one out further rather than having them up against the house.

As for the right side, deep shade, I agree with the above comment. hostas and astilbe do well in the shade. For height you could add a climbing hydrangea to the left corner, which appears to be the most visible when pulling up to the house.Add some good sized boulders and some bark for a finished look. If it were me, I would plant nothing but snow on the mountain. It gets about a foot tall (fast), does bloom white flowers and needs lots of room to spread out. Have fun, good luck.

I don't think you could be more certain of destroying some of the opportunities to create a fine looking setting than by building the raised wood planters. I would ditch that idea. In all of your pictures I see green plants at all levels so there's no question but that things will grow. A little fertilizer and/or soil amendments at planting time might even improve that.

Creating a nice looking landscape is not going to come just from suggestions of what plants to use. It'll be that plus their placement, arrangement, size, forms and finishes ... half of which is determined by how you'll maintain it. In order for the suggestions you get here to be meaningful, you'll need to turn them into an actual plan before you begin installing the work. Then you'll end up with what you intend and want.

In order to upgrade the look of the house, consider substantially widening the walk. It could be done by bordering it with brick. That leads into an opportunity to dress the whole yard up by separating beds from lawn with a clearly defined brick mowing strip. A simple, non-busy planting would better show off the features of the house. I am not the least rigid about the use of symmetry, but with what the scene is already offering, I think it works well here ... providing an air of formality without the bother of precision hedge clipping.

Wow, Yardvark! This looks great

Yikes! Thanks!!

I love Yardvaark's widening the pathway with the brick. You could start with just doing the sidewalk to the house, and add the mowing strips around the beds at a later date if you are short on funds to do it all now.

I also agree about skipping the wood trimmed raised beds in front. A "rule" of thumb that I learned from a class is to make the beds in front 1/3 as wide (front to back, or from house to front edge of bed) as the height of the house. 7" would be way too narrow.