Pic 2

Pic 3

Pic4

Pic5

Few suggestions....

Pic 1 left side is begging for a large shade tree to fill in some of that empty vertical expanse. Too often do we focus on small ornamentals that take up low horizontal space that the homes already take up.

Pic 4 how often is that RV parked there? Perhaps a nice group of spruces would be nice there. That subdivision is just screaming for some larger evergreens.

The pic below is something to consider for bedline. Seams boring at first but you'll be much happier long term once you start layering the palnts in there. Always best to connect the beds. Let the plants do the talking not the bed lines.

That ugly rv is always there. Septic tank is halfway back from front of the house, on the left side. Afraid of planting a line of trees due to that.

I would love to plant a tamukeyama, expanding the bed, but guessing you had a smaller bed line in mind.

As far as shade gors, my property corner (fence posts that I will take down) use to have a crape myrtle that was in bad shape, so I cut, treated and started letting mother nature rot the rest. Worked like a champ in the past. I'd like a shade tree, but have power lines above.

I really would like to connect the beds though.

Just put a southern magnolia there and call it a day!
Beautiful fragrant flowers and evergreen.

Or the ever popular Callery!

Do you want a bush or a tree, a shade tree or not, broadleaf or conifer, evergreen or deciduous, broad rounded canopy or narrower 'fastigiate' one, slow growth or fast?

What's the maximum & height & width you want to see? What's the minimum?

Do you want a 'Christmas tree' like look, with a pyramidal shape and branches all the way to the ground?

Do you want a broad overhead canopy, but a tall limbless lower trunk you can walk under?

Put another way, let's say you had a trident maple, a red oak, a Colorado blue spruce, a lacebark elm, a green giant arborvitae, which would be especially attractive or off-putting to you?

Richard.

Lacebark, bar none talking larger trees. Arborvitae would be a huge turnoff for me.

Do you like peeling bark? I've yet to have good results messing with paperbark maple just locally, but a few smaller trees (than lacebark elm) that come to mind:

1.) Paperbark Maple.

2.) Trident Maple (hardier, from what I understand).

3.) Three-Flower Maple (seems more rare & harder to get ahold of, but I finally got one from Broken Arrow Nursery online; stick it in the ground last Fall; we'll see...).

4.) Stewartia (I've read the Korean may be more drought-resistant than the Japanese, but impression from online digging suggests Stewartia can be a finicky plant).

Our current house came with a little (roughly adult redbud-sized) Hawthorn out front, which has peeling bark vaguely reminiscent of a Lacebark Elm, plus in Winter red berries, but it's got some thorns, too.

Richard.

Whaas and drrich are asking the proper questions. Long before you decide on this or that color of bloom, this or that bark texture, this or that foliage color, you need to decide on the two big factors: Growth form, ie. rounded, columnar, etc, and ultimate size. Once those two key factors are solid in your brain, then break things down to form, color, blooms, aroma, etc......

Too often, people work this thing backwards. They end up with a plant they really like but which never performs the basic landscape function that the location called for.

Size/form first....everything else after.

+oM

I like what you have done so far with the flower beds and fence. Now you need to bring it all together with flowering tress, bushes, and flowers.

If it were me I would place some more bushes surrounded by flower out under the road line. ie little islands. Obviously back far enough from the road.

Enlarge the area around the corner fence with some flower bushes like forsythia, gardenia, or with a pretty flowering tree to anchor the fence corner. Maybe some Daffodils, and other lower flowers.

I would also add some ground cover and some bushes around your drive way, and some type of large flowering tree or large bush. The idea is to delineate your yard and bring it into one lot.and to tie road area to the area around the house.

In our addition there are some fairly deep yards with house back 100 to 150 feet from the road. One family has spent a lot of time landscaping the area with in 30 feet of the road and there is nothing back to the plantings around their house. Both areas are independent with what looks like a golf course between them. This is what you want to avoid.

I decided to go with 3 Carolina Sapphire Cypress for a screen by the RV (thanks for pointing that out waas). That will give the wildlife a place to nest, etc as well, which is something that is extremely attractive to me.

I will be replacing the cherry with a Japanese Maple(considering upright varieties) and connecting the sidewalk beds as suggested. Plan to add a weeping laceleaf there, with some filler plants (TBD) around it.

Bloodgood is a good choice for a nice, upright, hardy Japanese Maple.

Also Osakazuki (chartreuse spring foliage, bright green in summer, bright red in the fall) ... nicely upright.