A small garden center can provide design services if you buy the plants there. I like the look of the black front door and using a lot of perennials. Don't forget to include grasses and hardscaping features. Look how this landscaping extends the house forward.

Cottage Garden with Curb Appeal · More Info

Also see how the house looks when you have the shutters off--you'd have a more contemporary look without them. Consider a larger light fixture over the door, like this only black:

Sea Gull 8647701-44, Fredricksburg Outdoor Wall Light, Weathered Copper · More Info

You are right not to plant anything, except maybe flowering perennials in front of the lower windows. I love Joe Pye weed, so do the butterflies. It spreads but it's not invasive. I cut it back in June to keep is shorter.

You can really cut back the yews instead of ripping them out. They will look horrible for the fist year but they respond well to aggressive pruning. Use a good quality hand pruner.

Two trees I have and love are Japanese Snowbell and Eastern Redbud. Double check to see if you have too much sun for the Snowbell. The redbud with its burgundy leaves would be prefect where you car thinking of planting the Japanese maple.

Japanese Snowbell · More Info

A Traditional Spring Garden · More Info

I would like to see an actual walkway to the front door between the two beds connected to the driveway. Maybe of bluestone pavers.

Total Rework: Front Entrance, Driveway, Patio & Deck · More Info

Front Yard Entry Walkway · More Info

Even a stepping stone one like this:

Less Lawn More Garden · More Info

The shrubbery that remains is still too stiff and overpruned. I'd remove it and the circle in the middle of the lawn. Also, remove the plastic/landscape fabric around the perennials while you still can. It won't prevent weeds, and it will damage your soil, make division and relocating of perennials or adding new ones essentially impossible and when it degrades you'll really have a nightmare.

You certainly don't want to block the lower level windows-I imagne you have such nicer light now! I just went through/am still working out a new bed situation close to the house. We had 2 trees that were probably cute little evergreens when the house was built...in 1955! But they beame older, sicker, & taller than me (by 40 feet!) and were 10 feet from the house so they had to go before they took US out. You DO NOT want to have to do this sometime later, trust me-disturbing if you like trees & really expensive if you get a good arborist. I'm just replacing the plants one year later, so I can't tell you what to plant even though I'm zone 5 too, but here are the things we thought about.

Mature size-the old trees were sick & messy for us & our neighbor. We capped our preferred size at about 10' tall so that it wouldn't be a danger to the house & about 10" wide so it would stay "home" (the houses are close) Depending on the bed, is it an upright or weeping shape? Will you be able to easily mow around the bed without crawling? (Or will there BE cursing?!)

Pruning-is it easy care? I have boxwoods around the foundation & I have no clue what cultivar, but I trim them a little about twice a year

Color-One of the 2 major perennials we chose is a crepe myrtle that appears to have great late summer color. It will be a surprise as most of my favored local nurseries were not open & we had to go big box if we wanted to plant this year. We chose it after admiring it at the Jersey shore. Our other choice was a red twig dogwood that caught my eye at a Dec. visit to Longwood Gardens-nice winter bark color.

I'm still figuring it out, let's face it, this year is different for shopping! If you can be patient, take your time, look at as many gardens as you can, connect with your favorite garden centers-they KNOW your climate and what works. If you need to fill space, there are always annuals in pots to experiment with. You've got a great slate to work with-enjoy it & make it your own!

Sorry for the radio silence everyone, it got busy for a bit here.

@housegal200 Thank you for the input and suggestions! We weren’t sure what was behind the shutters on the ground floor because the bricks and weeping mortar were installed after the shutters were, but I managed to pry a piece up enough to see what’s behind them: paper covered substrate. Now I‘m thinking of replacing the two lower windows with bigger ones that fill the space up sans shutters! It would let a lot more light into my home office down there.

@houssaon I didn’t know that about the yews responding well to pruning, thanks! Thank you for sharing the paver photos for ideas, too. :)

@laceyvail 6A, WV I’m still deciding what to do about the yews but I’m kinda leaning toward replacing them. What you don’t see, however, are two more rows of yews on each far end of the yard. Those ones lead toward the back (instead of parallel to the house) and aren’t nearly as obnoxious. Thank you for pointing out the landscaping fabric faults! I had no idea and am glad to find out *before* we put any top dressing on.

@plays inthedirt So much more light, yes! But I always want more. ;) Thanks for sharing your thoughts and processes on tree selection. I’d been considering most of these things already, and I really don’t think we’ll want anything that exceeds 10-15ft. I so wish we could do a dogwood, but everyone I talked to said it would fry in the full sun. The creeping myrtle sounds interesting though, I’ll look it up. Hope your plans are going well, too!

There are a lot of different dogwoods & most that I've been familiar with are totally understory trees that need to be under the canopy of taller trees, but the red twig that got my attention were in an area that would be sunny from the way it appears. I discovered it on a winter visit to Longwood Gardens (SE PA, west of Philadelphia, probably zone 6?) and they weren't in a forest setting. You might want to explore their site (yes, you WANT to anyway-trust me!) and I have asked the occasional question & received helpful advice. I just wish it was closer to where I live! I had to contact a garden club at the Jersey Shore for the ID of Crepe Myrtle, and with the changes with shopping this year I had to take a leap of faith & buy a plant I have very little info about, but I'll update as it grows up! Total positive...My favorite go-to nursery is back to regular hours so a big Shasta Daisy & Coreopsis are going to fill in a couple spots tomorrow & there were a couple hostas that I can't stop thinking about for the shady bank out back! Good to see my "garden friends" again & when he's given a cultivar a nickname you know it has been raised right!

Love the house and all the suggestions!! Please get a full glass storm door so you can see the whole front door!!