Unless you and your family have worn paths in the grass where you show these pathways, I would seriously question the need for so much paved walk. In my experience, grass will tolerate some light traffic. Paving is needed for heavy use or where footing would otherwise be unstable.

In addition, it's difficult to critique a plan with no explanations attached. For example: why are you considering a fence? The photos are a bit small to see clearly, but I think models can be very helpful.

Thanks for breaking the ice, catkim.

In general, this design is was my response to the challenge of creating an assymetrical design (which my house seems to need the way it sits on this lot) and using curves, (which I have discovered are more to my liking than sticking only to straight lines. They're hard to break away from on this lot, though, but perhaps I haven't done so enough? That's something I'd appreciate a comment on).

The model was my attempt to try and visualise the plan and balance mass and void. The latter is really tough for me. So, firstly, I'd like to know, is it balanced? If not, why not. Would it be balanced if I used only dense material (like the rocks?) or is that throwing it out of whack? Again, I'm not entirely sure what questions I need answered--you guys are good at helping me figure that out.

The fence: at first I thought I'd wanted one all the way around the front yard to enclose it. But 3.3 feet isn't much of an enclosure. Plus, I am on a corner lot with some foot traffic--and it would be nice to let folks see the "pretty plants." I know I really enjoy it. I was going to do away with it entirely until I read something on-line (can't remember the name of it now, but linked below) where it was mentioned that vertical height can balance a horizontal void. As there isn't much I can grow on the right side of the property because of the neighbour's birch, I thought perhaps the vertical on that side could give me partial enclosure and help balance the void there.

I'm not attatched to the idea of a fence, though, for two reasons: 1) it would block my own view of the trunk of the birch which is interesting and 2) it might be considered "unneighbourly" of me. (Though that doesn't worry me too much.) The first could be addressed by making the fence nearly transparent. However, doing that may lose its purpose in the design as being a balance for the lawn--so, perhaps some of you could comment and help me out with that.

About the path: I'd do away with the one on the right in a heartbeat, but I am obligated to provide something for the meter-reader to access that side of the house. It is too narrow an accessway to comfortably use the wheelbarrow.

We do cut across the lawn on the left all the time, so I figured a path there would be a good idea. And then again, my tendency is to repeat what is on one side with something on the other! The path encloses and defines the limit of the bed on the right--what would enclose/define the bed on the left if there were no path? I'd truly be interested to know the answer to that--especially if the paths are too jarring and divisive. I do plan to make them gravel, if that helps--not BRIGHT WHITE concrete or anything like that! The paths, though, have been my major headache and hassle (well, that and the fact I feel restricted by being unable to do anything on the right.)

And yes, we're still talking design principles and "the basics" but until the plan shows these things handled appropriately for the site, to my way of thinking, there isn't much point planning what bulbs to plant for spring. (Though I am only about 6-8 weeks away from that "window of opportunity" already.)

Hope that helps.
Thanks.

Here is a link that might be useful: Assymetric Garden design

There is no driveway or garage? Do you park in front and walk up that path to get to the house?

Have you ever lived with a gravel path before? I can tell you, they are nice to visit, but not nice at all to maintain.
Debris gets in the gravel & makes it look very messy. The gravel gets in the grass and makes it look very messy. Gravel is messy.

Gravel is messy. Got it. Does edging it in outdoor brick help?

We have alleyways. So, all access to utility lines and garages are in the back.

I lay awake wondering if the planting beds at the front are too deep. The right starts about sixteen feet down the front path, the left, 18' (which puts the curve right at the peak of the roof if you were to tilt the front facade down to the ground.) I'd be happy to make them smaller (but then the curve is tighter).

For those who haven't seen the front facade or don't remember, here's a picture from a few days ago.
{{gwi:45485}}

(KarenL--note the Birch has been pruned!)

Sorry, I got those measurements a bit off--the bed on the left is 16' deep (18' with the walkway) and 14' deep on the right--both as measured from the house. The lot is 42' from house to front sidewalk. So, they extend roughly 1/3 the length of the property.

However, the house on the right is only about 12 feet high, to the left, with the peak, we estimate about 20.

So, is the depth of the bed to be determined by the depth of the lot--or the height of the house? (in which case four to five feet should sufficient for the right and about 6 to 7 for the left).

help.

Would you consider using something like flagstone for your paths around the house? It would appear to me this would give you the function of a path without the "heaviness" of a connected/solid path, which from a use standpoint, it doesn't appear you really need, especially the path that would just be for the meter reader's convenience. Also, because you don't really have much height over the garden from the house windows, looking down on the plan as a 3d view is less important in the scheme of things than how the whole design "hangs" as seen from the street or exiting the front door. Some of the curving lines seem a little too irregular to me, and I would advise trying to make them a more pleasing shape. In particular, the narrow gore point of the shrubbery area on your neighbor's side with the birch tree as it touches your proposed fence looks odd, and is a difficult shape to plant something in as it narrows.

You might find it as useful to do an elevation of your front from your photos, and add plants in elevation to give you a better feel for how it would actually look from the street. The spacing of shrubs should follow what the mature sizes will ultimately be, or be based on whether you want the shrubs to read as a commingled mass, or be individual shapes.

In my opinion, the massing of so many shrubs on the left, outside corner of your lot and also house seems to leave the right corner of the house unbalanced, as seen both in plan view and from the street.

I don't mean to be obtuse, but I'm not clear if you are talking about beds at the front of the house or beds at the front of the lot. You must be way ahead of me in your reading, I don't understand a lot of your references to height of neighboring houses and how that affects the price of tea in China. I operate on emotional reactions to visual stimuli; I guess that makes me a very primitive organism, unsuitable for cerebral design critique.

Lolly, go ahead and plant some bulbs, you can always move them next season. Get a little joy while the process continues...

Catkim--oh no, I aspire to emotional reactions to visual stimuli--that's why I want a garden! I'm the one mentally deficient as I don't know how--have the confidence--whatever it takes--to get there! That's why I need you--you are way ahead of me in what I lack.

About the beds--I wasn't clear. I was referring to the ones near the house. The flagpole is 13 1/2 feet in from the front sidewalk and 12 feet from the side sidewalk, if that's any help. I had thought I wanted to put a bed near it--but I've been looking at flagpoles and planting beds and I'm beginning to worry it's going to look either like the entrance to a new housing development or like the front of the local bike store. Grumph.

and I can't remember what the price of tea in china has to do with anything (though I do remember typing it).

Bahia--when you say "flagstone" do you mean something like a broken line of stepping stones or something of that ilk? We had thought to eventually embed something into the gravel...but perhaps we ought to start that way. The front straight path--haven't decided that. It will be pavers or concrete or something solid, though, as we need to shovel it in winter. Are these curves too irregular--or were you referring to the funny beds at the front?

Point taken about the "narrow gore."

Of greater concern--the "shrubs" out by the flagpole--what if they were more open plantings--perennials and grasses say--and not shrubs at all? Would they still make the right just look "empty?" Are you saying anything planted there is a bad idea, design-wise?

I do have a picture of the front blown up to fit an 8.5x11 piece of paper--and I've been printing off shrubs to scale and sticking them on and off. (But only near the foundation, so far).

Thanks for your help.

Balance requires a fulcrum point about which it is achieved. What do you percieve as your fulcrum point? The fulcrum point suggested by your web-link is the central axis extending from your front door, but where do you think it is?

From looking at your house picture, I see a balanced masses (ignoring the overgrown Yew? to the left of the stoop), on either side of your house. Granted some of the mass may be borrowed, but it's still there in the picture presented. I don't think the asymetery of your lot is as exagerrated as the example presented in the 'design rulebook'(see link to asymetrical design) you are following for guidance. The result IMHO is that a design based upon those criteria (i.e. add a fence on the right side to balance the mass on the left...) may not be the solution.

A fence may actually be worse in that it will block the pattern of the neighborhood to share a common landscape vista and to block the birch tree that is providing some needed borrowed landscape. The fence across only half of the front yard, does leave me wondering when the rest of the fence will be built, because it introduce imbalance.

Isabella, thank you. If the house isn't all that assymetrical, as you say, then perhaps the assymetry "tips and tricks" don't apply. But it isn't symmetrical either--especially when you consider how it is situated on the lot.

Ah, the fulcrum. I'd forgotten about the fulcrum. I was preoccupied with the height of the house in conjunction with the depth of the lot. The centre of the house is just to the right of the door....the visual center of the property is the right hand side of the window on the left.

I have tried jogging the front path ...but it is only a matter of about three feet. (And then when I tried connecting the side paths--well, it was just too much path.)

By the by, the other houses on our corner aren't situated exactly like mine. The builder moved them a few feet further away from the neighbour than he did ours--so their front doors are in the centre, more or less. I don't why we got to be so special!

The tree hugging the house is a Thuja occidentalis. I wish yews were hardy here.

And I had to laugh about the "vista"--it extends as far as the first overgrown conifer--at the house on the other side of my neighbour. :) I do see your point, though. Those were some of my concerns, too.