Good job! You've made an excellent start. Now you can see what you have left and think better about what to add.

Excellant. I can see your house!

The pictures don't really do it justice. We are getting so much more evening light in the house it's fantastic. It's amazing what a quick round of cleanup will do.

Now to step back and determine what we still want to keep and plan for the upgrades.

Think about adding a rose or two. A short climber trained to a trellis against the house might look nice in the area where you removed the Rose of Sharon.

I consider your work to be progress. If you would, add a set of pictures (much larger than those just above) that pan the front yard. Line up with the front door, somewhere close to the curb, or about 30' away from house. Begin with a picture that captures what is left of the house. Continue panning rightward taking slightly overlapping pictures until you capture what is to the right of the house. Post the pictures here. (Don't make a computer generated panorama out of them. It will be too distorted.)

Absolutely! Yes, still a work in progress. This was only a product of ripping out the obvious so we can see what else is allowed to stay.

2 sets of pictures. One closer than the other.

Looks like all photos didn't attach. Here is the second set

unfortunately, these pictures are not pans of the scene so they cannot be reassembled into one picture. In order for it to be a pan, the camera must remain in the same spot for all pictures. Just pivot camera.

I see. Sorry, misunderstood.

The trees don't make it easy. I did another 2 sets.

Set 2

I should have added, from what I see, I'm not thinking that any of the foundation shrubs are usable unless you like to do regular clipping of height. The windows are fairly low so it would be better to use a lower growing plant. I would recommend a redo from scratch and not be pinned to any of someone else's mistakes from the past. Also, are you up to any hardscape improvements. The front walk is seriously too narrow. One way it could be widened by 16" is to add a strip of bricks at each side. This is usually not too difficult for the inexperienced.

I don't care for the placement of the front yard tree. As trees go, it looks forlorn and disheveled to me ... from lack of proper attention when it was young, so I had to get rid of it. (It would be nice to show more of the house face, but I could only do so much clean up.)

The two "shrubs" below the windows started out as window boxes. But there seemed to be little point in so little container showing so they turned into shrubs. Low groundcover links them. I already mentioned widening the walk, but now I think it ought to be more than 32" additional width. I'm suggesting returning the bed on the outside of the walk back to lawn.

I don't care for the tree either but cutting it down is likely a battle for another day with the wife. I can say that I agree with everything else. I think it looks great. Thank you for the time that you spent!

Maybe something like a blue star creeper or Coopers Ice plant for the ground cover would be nice.

However, this is my ideal look. Do you think it would be easy to do something like this while keeping the landscape low and balanced?

I am not a landscape designer like many of the others on this forum, so take my comments with a grain of salt. But I do have massive gardens that I've built up over the years that are many, many times larger than shown in your Wish photo, so I might be able to offer a bit of insight.

You had mentioned only wanting to spend 4 hrs/week gardening and have a limited budget. I can't see creating your Wish garden with that in mind. First, I would think you'd have to pay a professional to design that garden in so far as each and every plant would have to be carefully considered as to how large it would grow in the spot on your property, how effectively one could trim it to keep it the exact size of the design, and how it would perform in the spot on your property. In terms of performance, what I mean is that certain plants grow to different sizes, and perform differently, depending on many factors on your property.. For example, "Autumn Joy" Sedum was always a go-to plant (and there may be a few in your Wish photo) and most of my neighbourhood is full of them. However, in my yard, I use richer soil, amend with compost, water more than the norm, and my Sedum grows too large and flops over. So I have to replace it with newer varieties that have stronger stems etc. I would think that a professional design could be well worth it for you, especially if you are wanting to use lots of variety, and you are wanting to space things close together.

I would also think that the garden in your Wish photo requires hours and hours of carefully pruning to keep everything in its exact size. I would think as well, that for the average homeowner such as myself, your Wish garden requires lots of plant replacement. In other words, for me, it would have gone through many iterations of chucking one plant and replacing it with another because the first plant either grew too fast, or I didn't keep it quite under control enough and it got away from me. Or, the plant was prone to some bug or disease that I didn't have enough time to control, so I had to replace it with another. So I see a lot of cost in a garden like that for someone who is inexperienced.

Frankly, most people want beautiful gardens but unless they love gardening, they can't really afford the time to maintain them properly. Unfortunately, for some plants, once they get overgrown and tangled, it is very difficult to regain control. Which is why a lot of the mature gardens in neighbourhoods look decrepit.

When my friends and neighbours ask for my (albeit unprofessional) advice, I always try to encourage them to keep the garden as simple as possible. So that would be my advice is to keep it simple so that it looks good in 10 years. Keep in mind the mature size of the plants so you are not obliged to spend all of your waking hours trimming.

Good advice. Thank you.

Excellent comments, Daylily.

The primary purpose of a front yard landscape is to support the house. The more gardenacious the landscape becomes, the more it can compete with or obscure the house. After a point, it could be questioned if the house is even a necessary component of the scene. Note how camouflage-like a garden can be. It can be a "thing" in and of itself that doesn't need a house to justify its existence.

Duly noted.

I agree with Yardvaark that it would be best that the main tree in
the front yard is to the left of the house so that it does not obscure
your home . If possible it would be better to have a tree with better
structure to it since your home is very beautiful in and of itself. But
I get that this would cause a family battle so it may not be do-able.

Also I agree with Yardvaark that if possible, try to widen the walkway - you will definitely like the effect.

Going
back to your "Wish" garden - though you imply that what you like about
the picture is the mass plantings, I wonder if really you love the
overall picture. In which case, you love that you can see the stately
house (it isn't obscured by a tree!); you love that there is a large
tree to the side framing the home; you love the long gracious curves of
the garden; and lastly you love the mass plantings. (At least that is
what I like about your "Wish" garden).Again, I'm not a professional so I don't know how a professional would landscape your home. But as a hobby gardener, I would suggest that given that you don't want
to move/change the main tree, your garden beds
themselves need to have more of a long gracious curvature. The beds
themselves need a bit more depth - not so much that your garden is too
large, but a bit more so that you can get some structure to the
plantings. For example, here is what I could gather from your pictures about your current garden beds which seem to just follow along the house and walkways:

With the help of a professional designer, you may be able to give the beds a bit more depth and give a bit more gracious flow (if that makes any sense):

Just by changing the actual footprint of the beds can sometimes improve the look of the garden itself. The dots on my picture above would show places where you could put a "specimen" - ie: a shrub or ornamental tree that would stand on its own.

I don't know for you, but where I live, I have occasionally hired a landscape designer to come to my house for a one (or two) hour consultation. It was always expensive, but not as expensive as a detailed landscape plan. They would hand-draw up a rough sketch which has proven useful to get me started in cases where I was stumped. Perhaps this is something you could look into.

Jimmy did you ever identify the remaining plants? About the inspiration photo you presented, even if you had the money to buy all those plants today, it would not be possible. You have a fairly normal sized property and a very narrow path. Little paths cannot be flanked with numerous plants. Your house is not on a knoll. The scale would never be the same.

I think what you like about it is that it is a mixed border. meaning a mix of shrubs and perennials and vines. You could think of making one on the corner of your house. Like this

Not with these plants. The denizens of the perennials forum could help you choose plants. I do have to warn you, this is what the previous owner had tried to do. If you take out the round shrubs I think you should replace them with small plants which make a natural mound shape. They do exist. One under each window as Yaardvark drew. I know that in the real world we cannot always do what we think is ideal. I am showing you another option. You could move a few of the round plants and leave the three in the middle. If you shear along the pink line it would have a mound look and is somewhat centered in the middle of the wall. I am not saying not to remove all of them if you wish. If it were me I would have to do it gradually.

I would also straighten out the lawn edge as Yaardvark did.

This is a very interesting read. Thanks for sharing all this expertise! I, for one, struggle with a "more gracious flow" for the shape of my beds and actually was considering tackling this project in the next few weeks. (Right after the contractor puts up my privacy fence behind my biggest flower bed. Which will be right after it finally stops raining here in the midwest!) Anyway, I'm going to print off daylily's sketch and put it on my bulletin board to remind me what a gracious flow looks like.

Another day of hard labor.

Removed all of the shrubs and root systems. Cleaned up all of the yard waste and sent to the drop off facility. Removed poison ivy.
Next steps:

-Re-shape the beds and bring them out

-Grade

-Prep the right bed in front of the sidewalk for grass.

-Price out options for front sidewalk

-Discuss plant options with an architect/designer

-Wash house!!!

I also think we will be painting the shutters and door/entry black to update it a bit.

Wow - it is looking really good - love the fact that you removed the
existing shrubs - the new plantings will together look so much more
cohesive. I also love the idea of black shutters and door. Another
minor suggestion for something to do in the distant future - replace
the lights (beside the front door and around the garage) with lights that are about 2 or 2.5 times as large. As an example:

https://www.houzz.com/photos/martina-front-exterior-traditional-exterior-atlanta-phvw-vp~2216583

Here is an example of a similar house where they also painted the garage doors black.

https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-surprise-traditional-exterior-boston-phvw-vp~41278

I really like those ideas! Thank you for the suggestions.

First off, sorry for the drawing, I used a combination of Visio and Illustrator and am a novice at this stuff.

So, I had a friend come over and provide some recommendations. Here is what we spoke about.

Having him come over and also recommend removing the crab apple and replace it with another tree is helping my wife warm up to the idea.

I will be bringing out the beds quite a bit and building them up some with some fresh top soil. Everything will have a nice clean edge.

The plan will be to turn the front right bed back into grass, widen the walk way and add some boulders.

This fall we will focus on this front side and then move to the sides and back next year.

What do you think?

Nice layout - I think just changing the tree will do wonders.

As to the plants - I'm not familiar with all of them, but -

Does the "Dwarf Lilac" stay really small in your area? I have several "Dwarf Korean Lilac" bushes that are massive - 4 to 5 feet high and wide - if left unpruned - and I have a lot of trouble keeping them small while still flowering? If I were you, I'd choose three shrubs that for sure, stayed small because otherwise, they will interfere with the beauty of the tree. What about three Goldmound Spirea (though they can get ratty looking), or even three medium sized hostas if the area ends up being shady.

I haven't personally used Vinca for groundcover, but it is used everywhere. I often see people complaining about it for various reasons, so maybe investigate as to your best options. On Houzz, I often see some of the professional's gardens using Japanese Spurge as the groundcover, and it has a bit of a brighter green tone to it than the Vinca, so maybe it might be an option (though it may not flower).

I like the groundcover roses - assuming that you'd be putting at least two in the spot. I personally wouldn't put grass to the right of the front step - I think it will always look ratty. What about a mulched bed with about five or so Japanese Forest Grass "All Gold"?

Lastly your best bet for making a successful garden is to make sure that the truckload of soil you get has a very good mixture of organic matter - where I buy my stuff, they would recommend their "garden soil" rather than their "top soil" as it would have compost mixed in, etc. But this may depend on your garden centre. Add enough new soil to give the new plants a chance as the existing soil is probably depleted. Also, keep everything deeply watered for at least two years to get the plants established. Many new gardeners put the sprinkler on for an hour or two and think everything is good when this only waters the first 1/4 inch, if that.

If you insist on removing the crabapple (I wouldn't) then be sure to thoroughly research the replacement. MOBOT says that Magnolia virginiana is not reliably winter hardy in all of zone 5. Also be sure you pick the proper yews for in front of the windows--there are some that will stay low, but most will grow too tall. And for what its worth, I would never plant vinca anywhere except a pot!

PS: I had to go back through the thread to remind myself where you are. If you would go into your Houzz info in the upper right corner and add your zone to your name then it would always be obvious to any ready.

First off, you probably don't need the topsoil. If you do add it, be very, very sure that it isn't changing the drainage around the house. You may want to check in another forum like Trees, Shrubs or Soil before doing much of anything with the soil.

Second, double and triple check the size of the magnolia. Then check to see if they really grow where you are. They get wide, if they don't die, and look better unpruned. If it gets planted and doesn't look too far away from the house, it is much too close. It should not start out as part of the same bed.

Thirdly, if you are planting new shrubs, learn how to prune them to get the effects you want. To my mind, a lot of the charm of your idea picture is that the plants aren't sheared into regular mounds, and are allowed to grow into each other. Given your reaction to the original landscaping, my guess is that this isn't an attitude that is going to come naturally, but will need to be cultivated.

The grass on the other side of the door will drive you crazy every time you have to mow it. Start thinking about alternatives.

OK, lots of feedback. Thanks! LEt's see if I can hit it all.

1. I am adding soil (yes it will be good gardening soil) to the locations where I am expanding the beds out. The goal is to build a slight mound where the sod gets removed.

2. I'm not adding grass to the right side of the sidewalk. My mistake for not clarifying better. To the right of the sidewalk, I will keep the existing vinca. The grass will be in the from of the horizontal sidewalk where bed exists today.

3. Vinca. So there is an invasive species of vinca from what I understand. I'll be using Vinca minor.

4. Yes, the choice was a Dwarf Korean Lilac. And you are correct about the size, 4'-6'. It will be planted 4+' from the house. I'm not a fan of hostas so that would not be a good replacement for me. I will look for some possible alternatives.

5. The crab needs to go! The Sweetly Magnolia was the recommendation but I can also look at other options. It will be planted 12' away from the house and is forecasted to get about 15' wide. Yes, it does seem to need extra care for the first winter season. I will look for some possible alternatives. http://hvp.osu.edu/pocketgardener/source/description/ma_niana.html

"Sweetbay Magnolia is somewhat sensitive to being transplanted in Autumn, and care should be taken to amend the soil, fertilize, water thoroughly, mulch adequately, and avoid Winter salt spray, to enhance survival chances during the first Winter"

6. The ground cover roses will be in front of the hedge over to the left of the sidewalk. We think it will be a good easy plant to maintain here.

7. The densiformis yews, we discussed keeping them low, and an alternative would be some boxwoods too. Maybe they would be best thinking about it again?

Most people object to water in the basement. If you want to consider it a feature rather than a bug, so right ahead and change the grading. Otherwise, you need to be very, very careful, and seriously consult either the Tree or Shrub forums.

Vinca minor is the invasive vinca.

A shrub that matures as 6 ft wide should be at least 5 ft from the house, probably more.

The magnolia needs to be at least 20 ft from the house. 25 would be better. At the distance you are planning, it is going to be big, gorgeous, and have to go at about the same time.

The roses I honestly have no opinion about since they would last less than a year here.

The previous evergreens that you ripped out were either yews or boxwood. The photos were not good enough to tell. Just FYI. They could have easily been turned into part of this plan, but now they are gone, and apparently need replaced with more of the same.

I am in California zone 9, so I will refrain from suggesting plants. What I do advise is that you get opinions from people familiar with your area/zone.

I don't have any expertise on the magnolia as I haven't planted one, but I've seen some in my area that get very, very wide. However googling the magnolia that you've indicated seems to suggest that the tree is higher than it is wide, which to me looks appropriate for your property. Since some of the others have warned about the magnolia tree, could you and your friend drive around your city to see if you can spot that particular tree and observe its growth pattern? If you end up rejecting the magnolia, one option might be a Japanese Maple or Japanese Lilac as examples.

You asked above about the densiformis yews - I like that idea - as long as you do regular pruning, they take very well to pruning.

Just my opinion, but I really think that the Dwarf Lilac are way too big for the spot and they will obstruct the beauty of the tree. Plus they may eventually fail to flower once the canopy of the tree is in place. You really want to see the multistems of the tree that you are putting in the corner, and the branches of the lilacs may obscure the branches of the tree. Just my opinion of course.

If I was you, I would dig out and create the planting bed, buy the main structural plants and plant them - the tree, the yews, and maybe the ground cover roses. Then, stand back, and observe what would look appropriate behind and around the base of the tree. If it were me, depending on the space, I might put a bunch of hosta along the back (but I know you don't like them), or I might think of the fern "Athyrium Filix-Femina" or some of the Japanese Painted Fern "Pictum". But I'd get a better idea once the tree was in place. Underneath the tree, a lot of people seem to dislike the vinca, so look into possible alternatives. What about the Japanese Forest Grass "All Gold" - not a ground cover exactly, but if you installed many plants around the base, it might look good? Here is the forest grass - the yellow/lime plants:

Years ago I hired a professional to plan and install the gardens in my old house. She drew up an elaborate plan but I noticed that on the install day, the truck pulled up with a wider variety of plants than per the plan. I remember the designer placing plants, standing back to view, removing plants, replacing them with other plants, etc. The final layout was similar to her plan, but not an exact match. In other words, she used the landscape plan as a guideline especially for the main specimen plants, but she executed the finer details once she could see how things looked in my yard, and in the beds. So I think that you could install the fundamentals, and then stand back and talk to your friend about what would work in the spot, or post questions on this forum.

After digging around a bit, I am going to see if maybe the following changes would be better suited.

1. Changing Sweetbay magnolia for a Princess Diana serviceberry? It's smaller and i feel may be a better fit for the space.
2. Changing the dwarf lilac with Clethra Alnifolia Hummingbird? This is smaller and should compliment the tree.

3. Putting in Boxus Green Gem where the dense yew were. They will remain smaller over time

4. Changing Vinca to Tiarella Cordifolia

I would keep the Walker's Low Catmint and Pink Drift Rose in pace.

And after speaking with some nurseries, I would use an Autumn Brilliance Serviceberry, and likely Heucherella in place of the Tiarella, then Green Velvet instead of the Green Gem.

I've made an update to the drawing with plant selection and placement. I am looking for feedback. The budget for this is <$1000

Your new proposal is also more favorable to birds and pollinators, varies the bloom periods and rids you of the future headache of ripping out vinca by the bushelful. I think your considered approach and willingness to listen to advice will result in a lovely garden. Good worK.

It looks great! I hope you post pictures when you're done planting.

Looks good. Many of the plants I'm not overly familiar with, so I can't really give any useful feedback. The only comment that I can think of is that I often notice looking at professional landscape plans, that the lines of the bed are kind of "sweeping" curves like:

To that end, I personally would soften the curve of your bed, especially the inside part in the middle, as follows: I usually like to think of it as: Can I smoothly push my lawnmower along the perimeter of this part of the bed without lifting up the lawnmower repeatedly to get around the inside curve (if that makes any sense)? So I would soften the curve as follows: (Of course, this is just my personal preference).

I would use something other than clethera on the corner. It's not a very exciting shrub and contributes to one of the problems in your old foundation plantings--too much of a mass of solid green foliage.

My Walker's Low catmint never looked as good as it does in photos. I think it needs richer soil than the lean soil/sunny bed I had it in. It blooms well in late spring but not much for the second bloom. I pitched it last year--I have a small garden so every plant has to earn its keep.

Daylily, I don't read here often but it seems you're a new poster? I've been very impressed with the few posts I've seen of yours. You are a real asset to the Landscape Design forum!

Thanks mayflowers for the compliment - that is so nice of you to say. I'm just a hobby gardener - I've read on the old gardenweb for years and also joined Houzz years ago, but was always too scared to post for fear of people misinterpreting my posts. In terms of landscaping, I'm up in Canada so I don't know much about most of the plants I see everyone talking about, and the ones that I do have can have different growth habits up here than in most of the warmer U.S. states.

I do like looking at landscapes though, and after years of looking at the professional work, one does get a bit of a sense of some of the guidelines that I'm assuming the professionals use to get such luscious looking gardens. But at the end of the day - I'm just a hobby gardener so my posts are not necessarily accurate advice.

I think you should look for evergreen shrubs for in front of the windows that will stay low and spread together to prevent the "three green blobs that have to be pruned" syndrome. Have you told us which direction the house faces? in other words, how much sun? But you have to consider that you are replacing the tree which will cast more shade as it grows. There is a Taxus cuspidata 'Monloo' or Emerald Spreader that might work. Also look at Tsuga canadensis 'Gentsch White' or Microbiota decussata 'Russian arbovitae'. All three of these take some shade and stay very low and spreading.

I like the idea of using natives for the tree and the shrubs at the corner as well as the groundcover. You are making progress and you'll be ready to plant by the time it cools off a little.

Good luck!

I'd like to comment on a couple of plants mentioned that have been a disappointment. to me. Not that OP had decided to use them, but maybe I can save someone some money and labor. Microbiota decussata: surprising and disappointing. If it is happy it will become huge; "spreads indefinitely" I recall one source saying (too late for me). The two of the 5 I have left have a 7-8 foot spread. Mine also rotted from underneath. It grows and roots very close to the ground, wet leaves pile up underneath every fall and are very tedious to remove in spring or whenever you can get to it.Trust me this is not a chore you would choose to do. And branches close to ground die back regularly resulting in a lot of heavy pruning. It may be different in a more 'steppe' like climate but my New England experience says otherwise. I have read of a new cultivar that is smaller. Somewhere I read it is less susceptable to die back.

Tsuga canadensis lasts about a year then the wooly adelgids find it and it begins its tortuous decline. UNless they've missed your block, I wouldn't plant a canada hemlock for love or money.

There are much smaller calamenthas than Walkers Low. They do need full sun and should be cut back after blooming. An alternative is a perennial geranium groundcover such as Biviko. I found this summer, however, that it is not happy in full mid summer sun.

I probably got into more detail than you need right now but maybe the information will be helpful down the line.

It is always helpful to have first hand experience. The plants I mentioned are happy and thriving in my garden, but you are in a zone closer to him. I stand by my suggestion to find a low spreading plant that won't be a blob:)

I agree with your experience on the Nepeta.

For the most part, this design is simply a rehash of the old landscaping. So it is going to have the same strengths, weaknesses, and general effects. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, but that's really about it.

This thread has a house with a very similar general layout, but a different idea of how to approach the problem. Notice that except for the forsythia, which is on the hit list, the plants right in front of the bay window are very low. Also notice the number of evergreens (and evergolds) to provide winter interest.

A general weakness of this forum is that we tend to work from the pictures provided, and landscapes are more like movies than still paintings. People usually move through the landscape instead of standing at one viewpoint and admiring*. So another thing interesting about that other thread is that the landscape is not meant to be viewed from the street by passing cars, but from the driveway by visitors who are much slower moving, and may actually take time to look.

*Not too far north of me is Olana, the home of Frederic Church. Church was a noted 19th century landscape painter. Late in life he developed debilitating arthritis, and could not longer paint. He had always been interested in landscaping, but started taking it very seriously. So he had carriage trails laid out on the property with carefully selected viewpoints where the trees were cut away to form windows framing the Hudson Valley scenery below. Many of these were restored a few years ago, and trail walkers obediently stop at the openings, and view the stationary scenery.

I agree that it is a rehash of the old! It's surprising considering the inspiration photo had so much variety. It seems there's a missed opportunity for a great garden. $1000 can buy some nice plant specimens.

In creating the bed line, I would caution against trying to emulate nature's carefree manner too much. The foundation planting is essentially an addition to the house (much like a mustache and beard is an addition to the face.) One would not add other features to the house at random angles with imprecise edges. The circular area going around the tree should be an ACTUAL circle .... not an anatomical shape derived of varying, random curvatures put together. The circle should blend smoothly with a flowing curve into the other bed areas. Personally, I would not bring the bed back out to the front corner of the walk, creating the concave loop (that I think others are also suggesting is too much.) In the sketch following is a curving way to intersect the front line with the circle and a 90* way (which looks crisp and dressy if that's your aim).

As far as planting goes, I think you are in danger of creating one feature that I always find disturbing to look at: shrubs in front of other shrubs where both sets are almost the same height. I would think that the bottom of the windows is the determining factor in how high the boxwood and roses will be maintained and it doesn't look like either will be allowed to grow more than 20" tall. They will both end up the same height. It would be better to pick one and use a low groundcover in front of it. (BTW, someone said Vinca minor was the out of control one, but that's not my experience. Vinca major is the large, rambunctious vinca ... suited for large areas only. It's my impression on this forum that many people do not have, or won't use, competent methods for controlling plants.) One other thought is that you are basically covering the entire front of the house with shrubs. In my view that's overdoing it as all these things will eventually grow together and you will have the engulfed look. I'd consider going with less plants, in spite of the fact that you have a dream garden that aspires to the contrary.

Now, there's enough contradictory advice in this one thread that it's getting to be like the Bible and can justify anything you want to do. Just pick and choose what you want and wash your hands of the rest.