They didn't really "maintain" anything, they just rounded them off. They either need to be severely pruned back to stalks and let them come back and keep them smaller or pull them out and replant something else.

Thanks for your opinion, Kate. If it were you, which would you prune and which would you remove?

I would leave them as is and maintain. In a neighborhood of similar homes, the unusual is a refreshing find. It takes years of work to establish, I think it is lovely and a nice barrier from too much exposure, especially in Winter.

The ones along the sidewalk don't look too bad they just need a good pruning and shaping. The ones in front of the house are awful. "Can't see the forest for the trees" as they say. I'd pull all those out unless you're willing to, as I said, hard prune them back to at least 12" and let them come back. It will take a year or two. You need a good landscaper or arborist.

I know it's hard to let go of what's there. We did the same thing about 4 years ago and ripped out our entire front bed except for one cypress tree and replanted with boxwoods, azaleas, sky pencil holly, and small grasses. Now you can see the house!

There's not a whole lot to do without removing something - the issue is that with the house being set up on a hill, it looks like it's being overtaken by these large shrubs. Personally, I would get rid of the Rose of Sharon, the rhodies, and the huge oblong holly (?) partially blocking the view of the front door. The area to the right of your first photo looks a bit bare and the plants are scraggly, so I'd consider relocating some of these plants there, depending on lighting conditions. I would replace the rhodies with a compact variety of hydrangea (like Annabelle Wee White) toward the front of the area adjacent to the walk with a smaller spreading/mounding groundcover-like plant (such as cranesbill rozanne) right along the walk.

There are strong regional biases to shrubbery. A lot of people from the west and mid-west consider anything more than two feet tall 'overgrown'. And their only solution to that is removal. It's very predictable, and more than a little sad. Particularly since the usual advice on what to put in instead is usually a list of things with no winter presence, which leads to a second round of ripping and replacing.

That said, I'd consider transplanting the rhododendrons to somewhere they can really show themselves, and consider widening the walkway. The truth is that the house is a very nice example of its kind, and 'improving' it is going to take money and skill.

Mad_Gallica, thanks for your opinion. I am in the Hudson Valley, NY so the context around shrubs across the country is very helpful. Considering I am currently working with a small budget, are there any recommendations you would have to freshen up this front bed?

That the shrubs appear to be in excellent health and vitality indicate they ARE well maintained as does the attention to very careful pruning.......whether one agree with it or not.

With a shrub border that well established, I understand a reluctance to remove and replace. That is a big investment in $$ and time to reestablish. It is really a personal choice. And since the majority seem to be broadleaved evergreen shrubs or juniper-like conifers, "severe pruning" is not an answer and will make the situation far worse.

Your geographic location is important if you would like alternate plant suggestions. But even more important is what vision you have for this area.

@gardengal48 I appreciate your response and you are spot on, I am having a hard time with the idea of removing or hard pruning considering how healthy they are. I am in the Hudson valley, NY (zone 7a). I suppose you have given me my next step- coming up with what my vision for the area is.

I like look cottage gardens. Do you think there is a reality where pruning and then adding some smaller plants around the bigger shrubs would help or would that make it worse?

I would identify what you have and evaluate it. The rhodos look great. What's next to them? A pretty, tiny-leaved, possibly native azalea? Or a kind of boring cotoneaster? What is that huge curvy-shaped blob in the front? Is it something great or a boring yew? Can some of the rhodos be transplanted to the backyard? Or to the slope to the right?

I would not tear everything out, but slowly edit the existing plantings. My first goal would be to make the door more visible.

I would not replace flowering evergreen rhodos with hydrangeas.

Thank you, I like that approach more than trying to rip a bunch out at once. I believe the large curvy blob is a juniper bush based on my research. Do you think it would be possible to kind of eliminate part of it and then fill in that spot with something like a limelight hydrangea or gardenia bush? This is a full sun garden for context.

I think you need some pro help with garden design IMO the shrubs are too large for the space and the house but they seem really healthy looking so maybe moving some of them could be the answer. I always like landscaping to lead you to the front door not hide it.

I would remove big central plant, trim back ones and create some kind of flower bed in the middle.

Wow that you for that visual! So helpful!

" I believe the large curvy blob is a juniper bush based on my research. Do you think it would be possible to kind of eliminate part of it "

Short answer - no. Junipers and most other conifers cannot be cut back without leaving significant woody growth exposed that will be extremely unsightly and will not fill back in. Because over the years the junipers have grown together to essentially form one very large plant, if you do decide to remove or eliminate, you need to remove ALL of them.

If you are contemplating adding gardenias in their place, I assume you live in a pretty mild winter climate, in which case, I'd urge you to stick with broadleaved evergreen shrubs rather than deciduous ones. There is a common if unwritten rule of thumb in landscape design that a front entry garden should look as close as it can to its summer appearance as well in winter. Herbaceous perennials and deciduous shrubs that are just bare sticks in winter can be used sparingly to accent but should not be the focus.

That curvy blob is well-pruned. I don't think junipers take pruning as well as yews. I'd compare it to a yew, as well as a juniper.

How to Identify Conifer Trees: Pine, Fir, Spruce, Juniper & More (growforagecookferment.com)

That circular flower bed that @celery produced does not fit with the rest of your garden. It looks like some other garden was photoshopped into yours with no thought.

"Curvy blob" is too light in color and too finely textured to be a yew. I am almost 100% sure that is a juniper. And junipers can take pruning/shearing very well as long as one does not remove all the green growth and expose bare wood.

There is a older, established neighborhood nearby where every front garden has junipers pruned in such a fashion. Like the same gardener tends to all of them.

Maintenance is pretty high to achieve that look.

You would be well served to consult with one or more landscape architects. They know plants and also design.

Be careful who you hire to prune. My new next door neighbour hired a guy with a chainsaw to make her 50 year old shrubs smaller. It only took him about an hour to mutilate her landscaping, with weird stubs and shredded bark on the deciduous shrubs, and gaping holes in her junipers that will never fill in.

Your big shrubs are very old junipers and they cannot be made smaller. They have a layer of green needles covering a bare wood frame of branches, like a green quilt blanket. Look inside and you will see what I mean. The shrub is hollow. Don't cut holes in the blanket.

I’d love to see you put away the hedge clippers for the season and see what the shrubs have as a natural shape. Right now they are all just blobs. Some might need to go, some might need to be thinned, some might be better limbed up into trees. Hard to tell from their current condition.

I would replace the huge mound with a rock garden.

thx for coming here .. who ever suggested such was brilliant.. lol...

frankly.. i think the presentation is incredible.. and it would be a bit foolish to ruin it all ..

a good place to start.. is to take a ruler.. and go take closer scaled pix of the leaves and get actual IDs of the plant.. instead of guessing ... also.. i would take pix all summer long.. so we can fully appreciate all the flowering trees and shrubs ...

remind us where you are.. big city name...

i might suggest you have a 10 thousand dollar landscape there.. and you want to rip it all out.. to match the design of your house.. first.. fro a gardeners view.. it highlights and increases the value of your front facade... no matter what house is behind it..

if your only concern is house design.. rip it all out.. or move and let the next owner love it for what it is...

and the undulation in the allege juniper.. is a big part of why its so interesting.. it isnt just your standard sheared to within an inch of there lives lollipops ... its a living breathing undulating landscape ...

im not in favor of the rocks and the walls either... im not into east coast historical houses.. but to my mind.. warped as it is... brick walls are so 80s and 90s etc ... and im not sure about the big rock collection either..... i love plants if you cant tell ...

ken

@simplynatural I think this idea is my favorite so far because it uses what I have and slowly shapes it. I think that could look really cool and might eventually happen naturally with minimal pruning considering the second juniper next to it. Do you have any flower suggestions for the bare areas?

@ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5 Thank you for sending me here! Definitely the forum I needed. I am not leaning toward ripping it out. I like to try and work with what I have. I do know the last owner spent a lot of money on landscaping. I suppose I want to add my own touch. I prefer cottage-style gardens so I'm thinking attempting the solution from @simplynatural will be my route.

One last question, do you know how I would train my rhododendrons to become more like a hedge? Is that even possible? Or should I fill in the spaces between?

"There is a common if unwritten rule of thumb in landscape design that a front entry garden should look as close as it can to its summer appearance as well in winter. Herbaceous perennials and deciduous shrubs that are just bare sticks in winter can be used sparingly to accent but should not be the focus."

That a rule I've never heard. Maybe it's feasible in temperate climes, but it would limit large swaths of the country to a handful of evergreen shrubs in their front garden, including OP (who is in the Hudson Valley). And it tends to result in the look you see here, a collection of heavily pruned evergreen shrubs clumped along a foundation, neither formal nor informal, not really accenting anything, green in winter, yes, but uninteresting year round, sold to consumers by garden centers as "low maintenance" and providing "winter interest."

What I instead tend to see from leading landscape architects are gardens that maintain some structure and interest and avoid a completely barren look in winter while celebrating seasonal changes. This can be achieved through formal hedging/borders (whether deciduous or evergreen), accents of boxwood or holly "buttons" to soften edges, stone walls and other hardscaping, interest items like sculptures and fountains, deciduous trees with interesting branching patterns or bark, dried ornamental grasses, and even, yes, the bare sticks of woody perennials, if done properly. It's the very fact that the summer garden is gone in winter that allows these other elements of the garden to enjoy the limelight. You'd never see them with a yard full of bulky shrubs.

That said, I like Simply Natura's idea of coaxing the blob further into a cloud form with other evergreens, moving the cubed rhodies to open up the facade of the house, and introducing flowering perennials.

"That a rule I've never heard"

Then perhaps you need to expand your landscape design experience.

There are literally scores of hardy evergreen shrubs and dwarf conifers that can be used in just about every part of the country and the list of possibilities for a zone 7 gardening climate are almost endless. If you can grow rhodies (which have not been "cubed" btw) then consider kalmias, pieris, azaleas, hollies, boxwood, euonymus, heaths and heathers, nandina, Lonicera pileata or nitida, camellias, mahonia, abelia, etc., etc.

Save the herbaceous perennials and deciduous stuff as accents only.

Whatever you decide, consider choosing native plants when you need to buy new ones. We've been doing this for a few years now and are enjoying the life that it brings to our property. It is a joy to watch the pollinators do their thing - from the big bumble bees to the tiniest ones. We leave everything untouched over the winter (we're in Toronto). The birds come to eat the seeds, and we know that some pollinators are resting over winter in the hollow stalks.

It's a very different style from our previous landscaping style, similar to yours, of non-native evergreens + lawn + perennial/annual flowers. We're slowly replacing our lawn and non-native evergreen groundcovers with native flowering plants and grasses.

We got into it after admiring the entry garden at the Toronto Botanical Gardens, designed by Piet Oudolf in his New Wave planting style. To my eye it is always beautiful, as the plants transition through the seasons. https://torontobotanicalgarden.ca/explore/themed-gardens/entry-garden-walk/

Good design is a matter of taste. If a collection of dwarf conifers and shrubs makes your heart sing, great. I assume it's not having that effect on OP, since that's what she has and she's asking for help to make it look better. Taste aside,there's no rule that says you're stuck with that in your front yard, writen or unwritten.

Anyway, this fits my definition of cubed.

I love inheriting a garden with good bones that someone else has started. It takes away the hard work of starting from a blank canvass and gives fun landmarks around which to design.

I'd think of a braided evergreen and cottage garden. Create curved, teardroped, and wedged zones - I drew an idea of some below, in which to plant perennials. Play with texture, height, and various volumes. I'd love to see hakonechloa in the green tear drop I placed in front. And, find some that flower starting in late summer, early fall. Let it evolve organically depending on what you find in nurseries and over the course of a year or two.

Get inspired by pics that show evergreen shrubs and perennials together, even if they are nothing like what your actual garden looks like.

Are there area on the side of your driveway or the sides of the house where you can carry the perennials around past just this bed?

You said that you like the cottage garden look, which would be a look with lots of different flowers. For example, in the post just before mine it would be the second last one. Since it seems to be a topic of conversation, be aware that a cottage garden looks very different in the winter when it is not blooming. You'll also want a succession of bloom so that there is always something going on. The pictures we see of them at their peak are lovely, but there may be weeks where there is much less bloom.

You'd want spring bulbs to start, then plant annuals which will bloom reliably all summer. Some annuals are finished at the first sign of frost (e.g. impatiens) and others can continue much longer, even with a bit of snow (e.g. calendula).

Shrubs and perennials can be selected for a long bloom period and overlapping bloom peaks. For example, some landscape roses bloom steadily until late fall, others have a glorious display in June and bloom sporadically thereafter, if at all. Asters and chrysanthemums would end the bloom year.

If you look for professional help, be sure to interview your pro carefully. My sister recently purchased a home with badly neglected 50 year old plantings, and everything but the trees had to go. Her first 2 landscape architects had no experience or interest in using native plants, despite her saying that's what she wanted. They were clearly only using the same cookie-cutter plans they'd used for years. For example, lots of suggestions for boxwood, despite boxwood blight and box tree moth destroying boxwoods everywhere in Toronto last summer. But she did find someone who is aligned with her vision of native plants, and is in fact excited about it. Whew! Don't assume that just because they have a designation or degree, they will be right for you, or have the expertise you need.

" Good design is a matter of taste "

Oh my days!! Good design is SOOO much more than taste, however one may attempt to define that nebulous term. Taste is very subjective and what may be good design to your taste may not be considered the same by anyone else. If we follow your simplistic correlation, then every landscape would be considered "good design" if it reflected the taste of the owner. And we all know that not to be true.

Landscape design is governed by a set of basic design principles that include unity, balance, rhythm, repetition, transition and proportion. And to a lesser extent, line, form, texture and color. How these elements are combined and correctly address the site and the client's needs will determine a good design. To achieve that typically requires training and not insignificant skills. Taste is not a consideration.

Good design is far more rare than you think.

@ Kendrah thank you for this. I love the idea of it evolving and your comment gives me the confidence to maintain what I have and slowly add. Here are a bunch of angles of the front garden. You can see our previous owner put a lot of time and care into this garden. The clump of bushes on the right side of curvy blob are kind of sad looking at this point (as of last summer) so I am not sure if they should be pulled out or worked around. But there is definitely space to fill in with flowering plants.

Please take a close-up photo of the bushes on the right so we can get an ID. Show the leaves (if any) twigs and growth buds. Forum members will be able to ID the shrubs and suggest whether they should be pruned or removed. Thanks.

@cecily 7a You can see they are bare now but in the summer they are green and bright red in the fall. I tried to get pictures of some of the buds that I saw forming

Your landscaping is so beautiful and unique! I would maintain the wave-like forms of the evergreen shrubs and do hard prunes of your deciduous shrubs closer to the house (the red marks in the picture represent what I would aim for being the max height for your deciduous shrubs).

I am sure you can find some beautiful mounding border perennials to intersperse in the bare areas and/or in a few locations at the front of your beds to fill in and help a little with the visual scale of your shrubs rising more gradually from front to back. I didn’t see your location/ growing zone, but some low-growing native perennials and shrubs that I like that might work include woodland phlox, mountain mint, butterfly weed, and sweetfern (low-growing shrub with interesting leaf texture). I’d also find a way to intersperse some slightly taller or spikey wildflowers in target spots inbetween shrubs closer to the house (but keep them contained in those spots)— maybe some coneflower, goatsbeard, or similar? Kudos to the previous owners and you for maintaining this work of art!

Thank you for the close-up photos. I'm thinking it's burning bush but let's get a couple more opinions before over reacting.

^^ Agree. I see what looks like the corky bark wings of Euonymous alatus in the first pic. Noted invasive in many areas of the U.S.

There are a couple of problems with burning bush. As a homeowner you have a plant that looks pretty for two weeks out of the year. It's meh for fifty weeks per year. It wants to be a large plant and yours are planted in the foreground therefore you'll be pruning them multiple times per year to keep them sized appropriately.

Burning bush is highly invasive in the eastern US. Birds eat the berries and deposit the seeds far and wide. Seedlings spring up in natural areas, grow rampantly and crowd out the native plants. For environmental reasons alone please remove yours.

I think I see a Big Wheel in your second photo. You have a large area of shrubbery which occupies much of your front yard. Removing the burning bushes and sowing grass in that area would reduce yard maintenance and provide more play space.