Will your budget cover a consultation with the landscape designer at the local garden center? Since you are stumped, it might be worth it to pay for a new plan.

If you aren't ready to tear out and start over just yet, ask at the local garden center if pruning your existing shrubs by half will trigger new growth or kill the plants. Much depends on your climate.

I was worried that cutting them back that much would kill them but if your neighbor did it, I’ll give it a try!

Even if we leave them, I’d still like to add to the landscape and make it more interesting. We had to pull out the bush closest to the deck because the dog urinated on it too many times and it died.

How I would love those rhododendrons! I usually use the 1/3 rd rule. You can cut down most plants by 1/3 a season and be ok. Magnolias you have to be more careful. But they are not good for your zone. My experience with spirea is you can cut them back but they don’t fill back in low again so not as forgiving. I would remove those. I would definitely put some “terraced” zones into that slope. Could be really gorgeous. Start gathering rock. As you drive out in country watch for interesting rock areas. Of course, check with land owner if available but we have gathered many a rock that way. I will post some photos bbl

@flo mangan, what is a terraced zone? Like a retaining wall sort of? Or just edging? We have a ton of ledge around here I can use to build a wall.

Yes, you can go more natural for your property which I think would be beautiful. Using local stone is fantastic. If there is a natural path where rain runs off you could put a dry rock riverbed into the slope too. Exciting!

Very pretty! We are planning to update hardscape by the front door so I’ll see about tying into something like this.

View from end of driveway.

Here is rough mock up just for inspiration. Of course, lots of options mostly limited by how much you can do yourselves and what budget you have to enhance this very beautiful property! You can modify these “looks” to fit your geographic conditions and you could layout complete master plan and do sections as time and funds allow.

My brain is going crazy! This is awesome.