Knockout roses, ornamental grasses and juniper.

You have to ask yourself what do YOU want to accomplish with your landscaping? One approach, for example, would be not to do much of anything--cute house, low maintenance yard, enjoy the beach in the summer and call it a day. Now I am a plant weenie, so if it were me, I'd start planting things that I would want to look at. I'd start by looking out the windows and see if there was any view I wanted to either block or enhance. Then I'd look at where I traveled and see if I had paths there or if I wanted to add paths. Would I for any reason want to sit out on a front patio? If so, I might consider putting one it. What is that structure on the left side of the house/steps. I can't even tell if it is wood or concrete or a mix.

When I first looked at your house I thought porch boxes, but I could be wrong. At this point, I would start to put in plants I wanted to play with, but that's me.

As for your lawn, silver maple trees have very extensive and aggressive root systems, so they are out-competing your grass for survival. You might have some success with amending the soil and reseeding with a hardy, shade tolerant species. It's always going to be a struggle for you with the grass, I imagine you have sandy soil too. But I wouldn't take out the tree for just that reason, considering the shade it provides in the hot summer. Taking it out would be an expense, but so would reseeding the yard, so you have to decide what is most important to you.

Pink Mountain has just about captured the essence of the issue - any of us could landscape this for ourselves, but not necessarily for you. If you talk about the effect you want to achieve, you might get some help on how to do so.

And you are basically in a phase of the property's life cycle where the tree dictates the landscaping. I'm thinking it is almost dictating the building, too, if the roots are what is lifting the porch or deck off to the left there. That does not look good to me - don't know if you got a home inspection before buying, but I'd be under there trying to figure out why that looks wonky to start with. It is probably being lifted by roots, and if the house foundation isn't already affected it will be soon.

Since your property is now at the point where the tree IS your landscaping, anything else you plant or even build will be temporary until the tree moves in. If you amend the soil, build raised beds, or start watering, the tree roots will come and get the goodies. So from some perspectives, you might as well just make do with the grass until the tree's era is over. I gardened under a similar tree for ten years, and I can tell you it is mostly a matter of starting from scratch every second year and nursing struggling, anemic plants in between.

KarinL

Being from the garening school of Nothing Ventured... I'm not sure I'd let the silver maple determine my not doing anything. Do you like puttering around the yard doing maintenance? Is the structure to the left your garage and the tree beyond that, or out in the lawn along side a driveway? Can't tell from the photo the exact positioning of the tree in relation to structures.

With the cement walk (from the drive or garage) on the left eliminates the symmetrical foundation planting plan. A window box under each middle window would be a nice touch - color where some color would make a difference.

For the right side - the cobbled foundation is attractive; dig out a space extending a little beyond the steps and wrapping around the corner. A shrub or dwarf conifer out and away from the right corner could be a consideration. Look at some of the new potentillas that bloom in colors besides yellow, Anthony Waterer spirea for a dusty rose bloom, any of the ninebarks, dwarf Alberta Spruce, Blue Star juniper...

Compost is a good amendment to sandy soil and for the space involved you don't need tons of it. If your backyard has an out of the way space, start a compost pile with all those maple leaves, yard trimmings, banana peals, apple cores, fruit rinds, junk mail, shredded newspaper - there's no end of use for free homemade compost for garden spots and as a lawn topdressing.

Visit a local garden center to see what they recommend for a small space; dwarf varieties of many things are available (dwarves can reach some size but will take a long time to get there). I've never been opposed to making inexpensive shrub and conifer purchases from Home Depot, etc. When things are fresh off the truck there are some bargains to be had. With proper planting and aftercare, some of my most successful plantings have been the $5.99 one gallon size offerings. The pain of any failure would be a lot less, too.

Hard to account with any certainty on the whims of lake effects - deal with that here on L. Superior. It's a rare year that we don't have decent snow cover though, so much of what I do now is not for any particular additional winter interest.

I hate to tell you this as it does provide shade but we took out two Silver Maples in our back yard as nothing grew under them. I tried a rised bed and still the plants did not do well because of the roots on those trees. I would look at taking out the tree and try and a put in a less invasive type.Expensive job but worth it in the long run. Plant one you could landscape around. Red or pink Knockouts grow well in poor soil so I like that suggestion with some wild grass..Depends on the look you want...

Suggest you go through the winter before making plans. I have seen houses fronting the Great Lakes with major, wind blown ice covering everything including houses. Depends on location and direction of prevailing wind. This may be the reason why nothing is planted in your yard. If neighbors yards have minimal plantings or only easy summer annuals this may be a situation forced by winter conditions.