Stacy, You have a large and attractive home. Here are some thoughts. I would recommend that you do a few things first. Ride around the area and look for homes with similar style and lot size as yours. Take some photos or make some simple drawings of what you like. Identify the plants if you can. Spend a weekend doing this. Also maybe find a good book on landscape design or google a bunch of websites. I'm more of a do-it-your-selfer because I so enjoy it and want the gardens to be "mine" but some folks hire a landscape designer or landscape architect. Often that expert will consult with you and draw up a plan for you to implement. This is less expensive, of course, than having them do the installation. Now, for some garden bed ideas. I think you should stay away from so many dwarf varieties becoz your house is large and tall. "Scale" is a concept in landscape design where the plantings fit the size of the home. If you want the house to look less "boxey" you can extend the beds out or plant trees with branches that spread out. I think your beds should be fairly deep, coming out several feet. If you like the informal look then large curved beds would work. I like the color of your shutters but it seems to clash with the grass color. For some reason the grass looks really chartreuse, which has some yellow in it. You could incorporate some plants with the shutter color like burgundy and maybe intersperse some with chartreuse like hostas, coleus depending on sunlight etc. You can always use annuals in the front of any bed or in pots or in pockets amongst the foundation plantings. Annuals can be alot of work, so I have found it is good to have some good "bones" of the garden meaning the trees and shrubs which are permanent. Try to find some good shrubs and trees which are suited for your region but not overused like Indian hawthorne and nandina. Although I really like nandina myself. If you can find a good nursery in the area, not like Lowe's or Home Depot (which I do shop them) but the nurseries often have more variety and certainly have more knowledgeable folks. I can picture a very tall tree on the right corner side, you must consider it's ultimate size and don't plant too close to the house. I think you will have to expand things quite a bit for that big house but it will look so beautiful. I hope you do drive around this weekend I bet you will get alot of inspiration. Realize that it is winter time and some of the plants will have lost their leaves, so take that into account too. Good luck with your landscaping, I'm still working on mine after relocating 2 yrs ago, after living in a house for 23 yrs.
Laurie

The first question to ask when contemplating foundation planting is always... does this house require foundation planting, and if so why? It looks as though the rest of the yard is not landscaped much - is that correct? If not, what are your plans for that area?

Harry Lauder is a great plant in many ways and gets to be plenty big. I wouldn't put it at a foundation for that and other reasons. It would be a great specimen shrub out in mid-lawn somewhere, probably ideally off to the side, or to anchor another bed out there. You need to be able to get at its base to trim suckers.

KarinL

Hello and thank you for your comments.

I've had a couple people out to look at it, but it seems that the landscapers in this area have a thing about colored mulch, pruned weeping evergreens, and wide expanses of mulch. They seem to be completely unable to get past that and unable to answer my questions about options I'd prefer, and I definitely don't want that in my yard. :)

As for other houses in the area of similar appearance, most have hills of nandina or perfect globular shrubs that cover up most of the house. Either that or they've been done up by the landscapers mentioned above. I'll see if I can find some pictures of a couple of similar houses -- they look, to me, to be more awkward than just the bare front of my house!

karin, I don't really think the house NEEDS a foundation planting, as the foundation is completely unoffensive, but I would like something in that area other than grass. The rest of the yard is a steep slope down to two widely spaced bradford pears. I don't want to do much involved landscaping there until I can convince my DH to remove the trees, so I laid out a bulb bed there. It's very low maintenance, since grass doesn't grow under the trees. The rest of the yard is currently grass, which I'm looking into replacing with a more friendly groundcover.

I was considering going with dwarf varieties so that I don't limit the amount of light going into the front windows. It was a cave when the original massive plantings were there. I think, after reading your posts, that the big problem I'm having is finding a few suitable bushes to act as 'bones'. I guess that's always the hard part.

Laurie, the grass might actually turn green when it starts to rain regularly! :)

Thanks for your suggestions.

Stacy

Can't offer too much in the way of materials selection as Atlanta's conditions are as alien to me as northern Minnesota's would be to you. But, you're right, you don't have a foundaton that needs hiding. Perhaps a planting of dwarf or intermediate conifers away from the house, in the lawn and off set to the right would satisfy without blocking your windows.

The windows are close, pretty well eliminating the usual uprights on either side of the front door. You've got all straight lines and 90 degree angles, so maybe something softer or at least natural more irregular in shape would be more appealing to you. You know what you don't like and want: shrub rows, expanses of colored mulch, pruned weepers. What do you like? The established beds under the windows could take some creeping juniper, maybe a bit of ground cover, some well chosen perennials for interest from a distance as well as your annuals. Wonder if grasses wouldn't get lost against the brick. The expanse of brick to the left (garage?) could handle a trellis or an upright.

Which brings to mind - "dwarf" is a relative term. Dwarfs (Dwarves?) are simply smaller versions of their more familiar cousins. They're smaller simply because they grow slower, not because they have an inherent maximum height or width. Say a native Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) reaches 25-30 feet in 20 years, but the dwarf variety "bennett" reaches only 2 feet in the same 20 years. The following chart is for conifers, but there has to be an equivalent for everything else out there.

Category: Growth per year: Size at 10-15 years
Miniature: less than 3 inches: 2-3 feet
Dwarf: 3-6 inches: 3-6 feet
Intermediate: 6-12 inches: 6-15 feet
Large: more than 12 inches: more than 15 feet

Have you considered having a custom, wrought iron railing installed on either side of the door? One that slopes downward a bit towards the front and curves outward slightly.

Perhaps Fatsia Japonica on the garage wall. Large leaves and loose growing structure would soften that area.

For a more relaxed appearance and easily kept pruned when needed but not forced into a 'butchered' look consider the low growing 'Mystery' Gardenia under the windows. Readily available.

To 'end' the bed on right hand side my choice would be an easily controlled shrub known as Wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox). Open growth, deciduous with good winter form, fragrant, beautiful flowers in Jan.-Feb. Outstanding, underused shrub.

Now to the small garden bed to left of front door. Forget about planting in the ground. Large, complimentary pots...a few tall, others wide and short. Using them you can take advantage of Atlanta's multiple growing seasons. Right now they would be filled with Bright Lights swiss chard, pansies underplanted with spring bulbs waiting to spring to life, tall snap dragons, etc. This gives you an opportunity to show case different, stunning container plantings throughout the year. Here I would like to see you put together one permanent pot of green to achieve the look you are after. Purchase from one of the box stores two 8' (foot) lengths of 1/2" plastic pipe. Fill a large pot with soil and slowly bend and insert the plastic pipe ends down until they touch the inside bottom of the pot; setting the two pipes about 4" apart. Paint pipes with black acrylic paint. When dry plant two young ivy with muiltiple leads on the inside legs (one on each leg) of the pipes. As the leads grow, train/weave them around the pipes, trimming when necessary. Shortly you will have an attractive topiary that can be moved around as needed and makes a useful statement anywhere along the house front.

Would the addition of a windmill palm somewhere out on the front lawn help the landscape visually?

The railing is an interesting idea that sort of appeals to me. I'll have to think on that some more.

Wintersweet looks very appealing. Is the scent particularly strong? The windows are to an office, and my DH can't stand smells like gardenia, honeysuckle, tea olive, etc., so that may not be an option. Sad, really, because they make such nice plantings.

The area to the left of the door is actually pretty big! I should have listed dimensions earlier, but it's about 6' deep. I think that would be a LOT to care for without any permanent plantings. I like the pot idea, and was thinking something similar for the right side.

Palms don't seem to do well here, and I think it'd end up looking pretty strange with the huge bradford pears (slowly collapsing, but nevertheless) that are placed near the street. :)

Stacy

Gee, I do agree that entrance could handle some spiffing up - some definition. Can the landing be made bigger too? Why would such a big house have such a small stoop? Maybe you could turn it into a real landing, and put a wicker chair, a bench, or the aforementioned containers on it.

In the beds, I'm also limited by my ignorance of your climate, but there must be members of two plant families that can function as bones: conifers and rhodos. They are safe choices, true, but if you go a little off the beaten track and arrange them a bit artistically you can get some marvellous effects. I'm wondering, for instance, if you could use a really horizontal almost ground-cover conifer such as Microbiota, Taxus baccata Repandens, or some sort of spreading Tsuga canadensis cultivar as a base, and some Cephalotaxus or more upright forms of - again - Taxus, Tsuga, or Thuja as exclamation points or rounder/arched accents (I'm following Duluthinbloom a bit here in picturing mostly soft flowing contours), but don't think Juniper would work facing northish). Your deciduous shrubs and Nandina could punctuate as well. On the sunnier side you might be able to slide in a japanese maple.

Fatsia has grown on me, so to speak, though I don't yet have one - but I have to admit it has presence, which would effectively combat what you now have, which is a decided absence!

Your level of gardening interst is still an unknown here, but this could be made low-maintenance if kept to just evergreens, and a little higher if bejewelled with perennials, ferns, or of course annuals.

KarinL

The front of your house is very flat. Maybe a portico of some sort that vines can grow up or a larger area as an entrance, something like a large half circle shape in front of your door (at least 4-6 feet wider than the door itself) then container garden with some perennial hibiscus or something similar (brugs...something?) Then work from there.
The last house I loved in had burgundy shutters too, I removed them and used krylon on them. I just moved from that house and the paint never faded, flaked or chipped. A few low cost fixes could do wonders, it is a beautiful house, but needs some curves in the front. The flatness kinda makes the house look unapproachable, kudos on going for an informal look in the garden.
As for evergreens, lavender is soft and lovely. I left my blooms on and they are still purple despite two ice storms and the green is gorgeous all winter long. My lambs ears stay green too. I just ripped out some of the treeevergreens and have gone for softer ones myself.
Good luck and I hope maybe one of my ideas helped.
If you are attached to the shutter color, purple millet would look great there and has that ornamental grassy look.

Why would such a big house have such a small stoop?

I'm thinking it's the standard contractor pad. I've thought about expanding the stoop, but I'm currently at a loss on exactly how to do that.

The Taxus baccata Repandens looks like a possibility. It looks like it's got a blue-ish tinge to it, which might be a nice compliment to the trim. As for painting the shutters...I live with someone who's been begging to paint them royal purple and leave the house blue gray.

I was wondering about Heuchera and Fatsia to the left (as you face the house). Any thoughts on that?

This is my first house, but I've always loved growing things from seed, planting, and gardening. I guess that would put me at medium to high interest. My design sense is dismal, but I've done pretty well at keeping things alive. Constant pruning in a trial for me, but I don't mind weeding, occasional pruning, and that sort of thing.

I love lavender, but it does very poorly here. Even the humidity tolerant ones do less than well. I've got a few ornamental millet plants going, and I intend on putting them up front somewhere.

I had also thought of putting brugs in containers on either side of the door, so we seem to think a lot alike. :)

Thanks!

Stacy