Sunbum, one of the best ways to get to the right question is to ask yourself "what do I want this landscaping to achieve?" It's actually a question that suits design decisions in general, from paint colours to fashion. Ink has provided the clue to getting there with his observation that the garage is the prominent feature of your house, visually dominating the house itself, and that this is exacerbated by it being built at the high end of the lot. People with a design sensibility do tend to have an aversion to the "welcome to my garage look." The flip side of "welcome to my garage" is "where the heck is the front door?" and probably (I don't have a house like that so don't know) kind of an unpleasant feeling for people who approach the house, especially after dark. Of course, if you enter through the garage and never order pizza, perhaps this is not an issue :-) So the question you could start with is "does that bother me?" By chance, the sample photoshop that Goldie has provided also has that design feature; actually even more so, where the house is subsidiary to the garage. Of course, the contrast with yours is that your garage at least has a side entry. And you know, maybe people don't mind this look so much, now that millions of people have it. But still, there seems to be some effort being made to make the house attractive, so it does make sense that the landscaping would try to de-emphasize the garage and give the house more prominence. Now, my amateur design skills fall down at the question of "just how do we accomplish that?" but there Goldie's design actually provides a hint... at least, I think shows the effect that landscape design can have. While it is a pretty layout and very tidily done and maintained, I think it exacerbates rather than solves the problem. I stand to be corrected, but here's my rationale. A couple of months ago, someone posted a house for suggestions that was very different from this, but with an instructive element. The house was very close to the street and the lawn was an inverted U shape, with the bottom of the U being closest to the house. I don't remember what the OP question was, but Laag made the point that the lawn shape functioned to visually elongate the yard and thus to make the front yard seem as big as it was going to. Goldie's design puts a similar lawn shape - with a dominant line paralleling the driveway, thus more or less forming the U - in front of the already receding house. It is unfortunate that the photo angle of the later pictures is lower, but it almost seems in the actual installation that the house appears if anything further away from the street than in the photoshop. You may be somewhat protected from the full force of this effect by the line of your sidewalk, but the point remains that the lawn shape is a design element that will have an effect on how the two parts of the building are perceived. My expertise is sorely exceeded by the task of compensating for the fact that the house is on the downhill side, but hopefully you get the point that landscape can affect how the building is perceived - and decide whether you want to play with this element (vs just saying, "yeah, that's how the house is, so what?"). I do hope others with more expertise can chime in to at least explain what principles might be applied. KarinL PS: DrtyGrl, see what happens when you encourage me: I keep talking :-) PPS: Sunbum, you should also read the two threads by v1rtu0s1ty, you might enjoy them. Copy and paste his name into the search field to make a bunch of his threads come up, they are always instructive. PPPS: Or if all you still want is shrub suggestions for the existing beds, you can just sneak off to the local nursery to ask for advice, and ignore us all :-) Here is a link that might be useful: Virtuosity's thread on shape of planting bed

I guess it's time for me to go beyond a general interest in LA and decide what it is I want to do. What stirred my interest and question was the combination of outdoors work, creative work, nature, environment, and the fact that getting into LA with an engineering/geology background might easier than switching to something else "creative" that didn't involve the science/engineering side of LA. As it turns out, I am really less interested in that part though. So maybe LA is not the degree for me or at least overkill. I have since talked to two local industry professionals which has been another eye opener. It seems, the two work at opposite ends of the spectrum. One designs high-end backyard paradises, deals with planting and design. The other has a workload that consists mostly of landscaping the space around his company's architecture projects, and deals with irrigation issues, city codes, turf grass, and sprinkler systems. The latter doesn't sound nearly as much fun as the former. It sounds too much like engineering. The guy was great, almost a life saver, provided a wealth of information, and yet I came away thinking maybe I am peering down the wrong alley here. Maybe I shouldn't try to pursue LA but continue gardening at home. Anyway, I got a number of leads for additional people to talk to, and I will see what they say. I could see myself working on residential projects and even for some municipal department. 99% of the cities I see are in dire need of landscaping and protecting those small and shrinking green interstices. Maybe my green passion for nature and environment would be better spent somewhere else rather than possibly having to go to work for a company that's "landscaping" urban sprawl. I don't mean to offend anyone. I just think much of urban USA is not a nice place to live. Is LA the field for someone wanting to make a difference here, or should I look into urban planning ? Anyone ? I'm confused.

It is hard to explain much in a drawing without a lot of drawing -- too much drawing. And keep in mind that this idea is an EXPLORATION ... not a statement that you CAN ABSOLUTELY DO such and such ... an idea that was alluded to earlier in the conversation. The idea is that you can probably raise the grade about 6" or so, to near the bottom step tread (coming off of the deck). If you carried that elevation across the courtyard (that's what I'm calling the space between the two buildings) it would bring you to just a few inches below the fireplace, and you could build the patio at this raised level. Additionally, you could add a raised hearth at the base of the fireplace that would make the firebox itself not seem raised so high. In other words ... if you were to build a paver patio ON TOP OF the existing grade, without any excavating whatsoever, adding the base material, setting bed and pavers, it would raise you up about 7" higher (at least it would in my area), bringing you to near the level of the bottom tread. Then, after that patio was built, you added topsoil to blend the yard elevation up to it -- kind of like a "ramp" at either side -- then you'd have more or less what I'm talking about. There would be details that you need to work out in order to to this, but it looks like it would be doable according to the buildings exterior. I hope that helps. I don't hold much hope for the illustration being able to well explain it. Under any circumstances, I would not build a deck or patio that blocked access through the "courtyard" by any wheeled cart, vehicle, lawn mower, etc.

The garden looks great! I always do a “planting map” when I put things in the ground or else I have no idea what is coming up. I have a ton of day lilies and couldn’t identify them without my map.