You've got a good start at a base plan here, but it's missing the front curb and a big chunk of driveway & apron. Then you could clean it up, getting rid of all unnecessary information and extraneous lines so it becomes easier to read. You could do this on a copy in case you might need any of the information back later. (This would be easy to do by opening it in a paint/draw program like MS Paint, using mainly select and the delete key.) You say there is a pond and patio so draw these in. At that point it would be ready for you to create bed lines. In order for help with that, you'd need to provide elevations of the house. Are there views you're trying to screen? It would be important to know about those.

Thank you, definitely value your opinion here. Cleaned up the drawing and indicated the roadway, patio and pond area. The drawing is pretty much to scale and the only area to screen really is also indicated which is the residence to the right. To the left and rear of the house are wooded areas. Front and rear elevations also uploaded.

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“it's missing the front curb and a big chunk of driveway & apron.”

Yardvaark, perhaps I am misunderstanding, but I think the entire plantable part of the property is shown. I am assuming that the ROW includes the street and sidewalks, with perhaps a narrow tree lawn, or perhaps not.

Reel, What are your interests and goals for the space beyond boat storage and a patio?

Do you like gardening or want low maintenance?

Space for large or small gatherings?

What is the greenspace? Whether it is wooded or open, has views to enhance or privacy needed will go a long way towards helping with guidance on how to deal with the back yard.

What does your HOA give for guidance as far as fencing and height, plantings, grass, amount of paving, types of plants, etc. There is a huge range on what HOAs will accept, and if yours has specific guidelines, we need to know what they are.

Are you concerned with privacy from neighbors on either side?

If it were mine, I would plan to fill the entire front area with garden plants, with shrubs and ground covers for the entire area in front of the house, and a small tree or a shrub trimmed to tree form on the right side of the driveway, again with groundcover or low shrubs below. The size of your spaces in front are really too small for a lawn, and slightly taller plants than grass will help soften the proportionately large expanse of paving. A 3’-4’ x15’ sliver of planting space won’t be particularly attractive since it will need to have plants in basically a straight line.

For the back:

Why do you want a pond? It seems as though it would leave you with almost no other yard space beyond the patio, and ponds tend to involve a lot of work. 10’ deep x 15’ pond has the potential to need fencing for safety in many jurisdictions. If you aren’t looking at it for your koi collection or something similar, a small informal fountain with a below ground reservoir can provide many of the benefits of a pond (beauty, birds, the sound of moving water, etc.) with less maintenance. With a pond that size you would also need to consider how it would be created (ie machinery vs hand dug) and when/how best to get digging equipment in place in order not to damage other plantings, the patio, or the driveway.

With more guidance from you about what you want for the space and what your limitations are, you will get better feedback.

Thanks for the input and here is further information:

From the front of the garage to the street on our site plan set back wise is documented at 20'. The roadway has a 40' right of way. However, in reality the actual road is just shy of 20' wide. Once the house is set in place from the front of the garage to the edge of the road will be in the neighborhood of 40' give or take which will be sodded. There is no sidewalk abutting the roadway.

As for the space beyond the boat storage area, I'm thinking perhaps some low growing flowering hedges would come into play or a bed of roses about the width of the driveway. Overall the goal is going to be low maintenance, owning my own business does not provide for a great deal of spare time and what I've got I really don't want to be consumed by a tremendous amount of yard work. The patio shown is more than large enough for any gatherings that we'll have which are not that frequent. and we do not have children.

The green space shown directly behind the lot line is a 50' deep area that is wooded to afford privacy from neighbors to the rear. The space to the left of the property is a wooded lot which is quite likely to stay that way for a considerable period of time. Thus, I am not concerned with any “visual pollution” to the left or rear of the house. There is a neighboring residence to the right side which is well kept with very nice neighbors who are retired. The only “privacy issues” or areas that we'd like to address would be from the neighboring residence to the right side. From the end of the driveway on the right side to the rear of the property would be an area that we would like to focus on for privacy.

As for the HOA, it's pretty relaxed. Fence wise, there cannot be a fence that extends forward of the right front corner of the actual house and a fence cannot be taller than 6'. We prefer to address that area with landscaping vs a fence or a fence that would be temporary in nature. We sit directly on a saltwater bay and the elements of mother nature will come into play with a wooden fence. Since there is no “miracle grow” that will instantly produce a nice wall of hedges, a temporary wooden fence will suffice.

In the front, the sliver of lawn as it were will be approximately 40 to 45' W x roughly 40' D. I am thinking to soften the edges of the driveway that adding a low maintenance bed would work with ground cover and flowers perhaps. The area down the right side of the property will be about 15' W give or take and be sodded. There may be a row of low growing hedges etc in the front of the garage along with a nice tree as a focal point.

Moving the rear of the house and the pond. The pond will be the focal point to the rear. It will be added before the house is completed and driveway installed. I've been in touch with a local company who will dig the pond with their equipment, my pond digging days are over LOL. Granted it's a fair size pond, it will be free formed as in a kidney shaped and say maybe 10' D x 14 to 15' W. Maintenance wise with the filtration, it's far easier to maintain a larger volume of water vs smaller. The far side of the pond that will center on the patio will have a waterfall and as indicated, the benefits of the sounds of moving water and wildlife are what we seek. The pond will be inhabited by a species of Goldfish that closely resembles Koi.

From a maintenance stand point overall, the pond will be more involved which I am fine with. Once installed and the rear of the property is sodded landscaping will be added to the perimeter of the pond. The rear of the property will assuredly be more maintenance intensive with the pond. From the far side of the pond to the rear property line there will be under 20' of property that we technically own. Visually with the green space, it will appear to be considerably more.

Overall though the goal is to keep it simple with minimal maintenance as possible while still being able to obtain a cohesive appearance. We will be using a lawn service so one less thing to be concerned with so any maintenance that I will focus on will involve weeding and trimming as need be. I imagine I'd be planting “a tree or two” in the front of the property as well as the rear. Until the lot is cleared, it's not possible to identify what trees will be retained.

The work will all be done in phases with the initial focus on adding minimal landscaping to the front and rear of the property and down the right side. This basic plan will be submitted to the HOA, AKA Phase 1. From a design perspective and where we are at, I am of the mindset to generate a plan for Phase 1 to submit to the HOA and a Phase 2 plan as a building block. Nothing is written in stone but the above will provide for a solid foundation to build upon. Thanks very much !

OK, so there is actually about 30’ in front of your drawing, much of which will be lawn. Correct?

Correct, that's an approximation but relatively close.

I strongly suspect that how the street is shown in the plan is not correct, as no one would have a drive apron like that, and it seems only about 10' or 12' away from the house. I'm thinking it is more like this:

There are many philosophies/approaches to landscape design. One of them involves having a like for something and thinking that the best way to have and display it is front and center, right under one's nose. People often do this by planting their favorite tree smack outside of the picture window. Parking the pond as shown strikes me as that kind of solution. It doesn't look at all nestled/fit into the landscape, but seems positioned where all else must defer to it. I would think to place it in front of and closer to whatever perimeter planting there will be, would be a better solution, especially since the pond is large and yard is not. (We are handicapped by not seeing the neighboring backdrops or grade layout of the site.)

I think I understand now that the area marked "screen this area" is where screening material would go and not itself an area that must be screened ...?

Thanks for your input, the extended driveway to the right of the house AKA boat storage is 16' wide. My boat on the trailer is close to 10'W plus taking into account 2' plus of roof overhang thus the need for the width. At the entry to the driveway, the goal is to retain that same width. Reason being, my truck is 22' long. The boat and trailer are 32' long which brings the total package to 54' long. The width of the street is actually 18' so in order to give myself room to back the boat in, I'm retaining that general width. How the radius will be moving up towards the garage to the left will be determined on site.

As far as the actual placement of the pond, agreed I pretty much plopped it into the drawing so to speak. Only because the thought process is that the pond will be the focal point and we want to enjoy the pond when we are on the patio which will be a great deal of the time. The dimensions are at this point purely approximate, it will absolutely not be any larger and it will be a kidney shaped and not rectangular like a pool. But it is surely NOT nestled in there lol. The best way to describe the property is that the left side and the rear of the property is bordered by what I'd describe as a fairly dense wooded area.

The "screen this area" comment is an area that I would like to "obstruct" the neighbors view. The rear of the neighbors lot is pretty wide open and sodded. From say the right rear corner of the house where the driveway ends to the right rear corner of the property we'd want to install a 6' tall fence or a hedge that will provide for privacy within say a 2 year time frame. Lastly the lot layout, perhaps the photo below will help you get an idea. The treed area the left side of the actual photo is a bit thinned out towards the rear of the neighboring property. The "darker area" of the photo depicts our actual lot lines or somewhat close. This may give y'all a better visual as indeed you're handicapped and don't know the lay of the land.

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For people whose brain has trouble doing the mental flipping:

Thanks Carol, should have done that myself. As an added thought we are not against adjusting the pond size, we’d just like to be able to view it from inside the house thru the glass doors and place it close enough to the covered patio to hear the waterfall. Not that it matters but patio is screened in.

Thanks, where in FL are you ?

I live in Tampa

"Yardvaark, perhaps I am misunderstanding, but I think the entire plantable part of the property is shown." Sorry, Babs, I meant to reply to this earlier. I'm pretty sure the plan Reel added with the street is wrong. It's only a 10' or 12' landscape strip between curb and garage wall and it shows no apron or space for apron. There's a corner shown at the left that I'm pretty sure has to represent the street. And if it does, it makes things make sense. Also, looking at the aerial views added, the neighbor's garage is set back from the curb the equivalent of about 3 traffic lanes. I think Reel's set-up is likely to be similar.

Just and FYI the plan uploaded s from the surveyor and very accurate. This is the plan approved by the county. i dont know the set back of the neighbors house. As noted earlier the street width is actually about 18’ wide, there is a 40’ ROW so indeed the house will sit further back, just not sure how far.

Yes, Yardvaark, Reel answered upthread, so I understood that after my first post.

This is probably more accurate road placement.

Exactly what I’m thinking. Won’t kniw till we are in the field but corners are marked so I’ve got a rough idea.

I would likely place the pond somewhat over towards the left as Yardvaark suggested, though perhaps a bit closer to the patio for viewing. Placing it as original plonked down will effectively cut the yard in half so that you won’t have much useable space.

I like Yardvaark’s placement of trees flanking the drive somewhat near the drive court so as to reduce the impact of that much pavement. For the flowering shrubs to the right of the drive, choose something low maintenance. Generally speaking, most roses are fairly high maintenance, requiring disease management, pruning, deadheading. Similarly, in choosing your privacy hedge, choose one whose mature size doesn’t need extensive pruning to stay the size you want. That may mean that you will want to erect rolled bamboo with posts as a temporary screening, since it will take them a bit longer than a couple of years to reach your preferred size. Fast growing hedging will regrow quickly after pruning and so will need pruning more frequently, so more maintenance.

Make your front bed to the left a minimum of 5’-6’ deep to have a more balanced appearance rather than just a skinny strip of single file plants. Consider placing a small tree or large shrub diagonally off the left corner of the house as well. Again, check out mature sizes (not the tag sizes which tend to be 5 year sizes) and plant them so that at their largest they won’t get closer than about a foot from the house to allow the building to dry and to leave room for maintenance. I usually check on botanic garden websites for accurate size estimates.

Thanks, I reviewed the actual plan dimensions and the frontage was off. I've corrected it and much closer to Yardvaark’s version and is now accurate. To the left side of the patio there will be a large propane tank for our back up generator and a large genset. I'll have to come up with a way to screen those out of site. Having lived in South Florida I know all too well about fast growing hedges such as ficus that require a lot of maintenance. Funny with most spec houses, builders just toss anything in the ground without taking into account what the tree or plant will look like 5 years down the road so more often than not owners rip it out and start over. Revised and accurate plan. From the edge of the house to the edge of the front property line is 20' and forward another 10' is the right of way that is not paved but we will sod that. I don't see that ever being paved.

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In your initial post you said you were needed to submit a "preliminary plan." This sounds like it could be a concept plan (solving problems: screening, shade, erosion control, etc) that calls out general plant types (25' height deciduous tree, 25' height palm, 6' height hedge, 3' shrub, perennial, sod, etc.) You'd need to check with HOA if that is what they're looking for or if they need a first version landscape plan where specific plants names are called out (which is decorative in addition to complying with the already determined problem-solving aspect.) You have enough information (base plan plus bed line example) to make a simple landscape plan tailored to your needs. All you have to do is draw in the plants and label them (general type, or specific, as HOA dictates.) Where plants are grouped, draw in an outline for the group. (A hedge, for example would look along the lines of a caterpillar.) Individual plants would be circles. Even if you need a landscape plan with specific plants, I'd do a general concept plan first (with pencil on a printed copy) so that you understand what you're creating. For that you don't need to know plants; you only need to know plant forms/shapes. Later, for the actual landscape plan, you'd pick plants capable of making those forms and sizes.

Thanks. Indeed I thought preliminary but it has taken a turn which isn’t a bad thing for sure. I have spoken to the HOA and asked for a copy of a plan they deem acceptable and got the deer in the headlights look lol. From what I gather it’s a very rudamentary sketch witn plant bed here and one there, here’s the driveway and 2 shrubs and a tree kind of a sketch. With your guidance I’m already there. At no point do they get species specific.

I am thinking maybe move the pond a tad closer to the patio which will also free up space for the screening of the genset and LP tank. Not sure what direction to take there but some form of a temporary hardscape or fence softened up with plantings. Aside from focusing on low maintenance another concern will be plants, trees etc that are highly salt tolerant since we sit directly on a salt water bay, house is with 200’ of salt water so salt spray comes into play etc.

It sounds like they're looking for a simple concept plan, which should be fairly easy for you. If you want constructive feedback on it after it starts gelling, return to show a progress print. I didn't mention yet, if the back elevation is correct, the plan is flawed because the patio proportions don't jive between the documents ... just a heads-up before you do too much plant planning.

If the pond moves away from the corner to where its backdrop becomes straight, its being somewhat of a D-shape may fit the space better. Something to explore.

I don't know exactly where you're putting the LP tank, but I'd try to keep it out of direct view from inside, too.

Thanks we are hoping to be able to bury the LP tank but the water table may well be an issue, to soon to tell but that’s the goal and we’d only have to contend with the genset and if we are really lucky the genset can go on the left side out the house to the rear out of view completely.