My first thought on reading your question was that you'd precluded the one thing I immediately thought of, which was to remove the camellia near the door. It unfortunately does not appear to be the dying plant you have your eye on. So I had to think about this one a bit. This forum is a little different from Home Dec, and some of the differences cause us to move a little slower! Obviously the front of your house had the same effect on me as on Rhodium. I've included a link to a question recently posted here with similar problems although the house style is very different. You may be able to appreciate the effect of a blocking plant and a dark door if you see something similar on someone else's house. You may still decide not to change it, of course! The palm by the driveway gives a little character in what seems to be a cookie cutter neighbourhood, so more power to you for keeping it. Given that you don't have much time, the prime part of the look you're after - manicured - may be best achievable just by pruning those boxwoods. But for the colour objective, you either have the wrong plants in, or not enough plants. To add plants you pretty much have to add beds, which means adding work. You see again how your parameters have somewhat precluded helping you get what you want :-) So I'm going to go around your parameters to make suggestions, and let you sort out which ones you do want to flex on if any. I would take out the camellia and put your decorative pot under your house number, not in the doorway. I would also paint the front door a brighter colour. Then I'd use the area next to the front door for your colour bed; it's small, but I think you'd enjoy it coming and going. Prune the boxwoods as well as the bushes to the left which are getting a bit shapeless, and maybe replace those grassy things in front of them with annuals or perennials that you like. Light coloured hostas would work in my zone and provide longer term interest than plants that have only flower interest. If you really want more planting beds, I would add them out further in the yard, something like an island bed out toward the left corner. KarinL Here is a link that might be useful: wanting a welcoming entry

It's not a great picture for getting constructive feedback. It would be better if you move the camera a little to the left so people can see the complete entrance. And then pan the camera from far left to far right taking OVERLAPPING pictures that include the neighbors' houses, which are part of the surroundings for your house. Also, move the camera to the city sidewalk so you are not quite as far away. Landscaping and street appeal is about coordinating all these things together .... not just what's directly in front of your house. That said, I can make a few comments about your existing landscaping: The entrance is weak ... barely a cave-like slit set far back compared to the broad expanse of the garage door. One way to improve it is to create a much larger path to it ... a path capable of allowing two people to walk side-by-side to the entrance. Creating it with some decorative qualities would be a plus. I would change out the plants flanking the garage door to something smaller, possibly more colorful, and something that grew in a more "arrangement"-like fashion. Smothering the base of the house and hiding windoes with a single hedge is not a particularly handsome solution. I think it would be better to coordinate shrubs with architectural features and incorporate some other plant types ... color, small tree, perennials, etc. Need better pictures to explore possibilities. It might be that the foreground tree will eventually not allow grass to be grown well. At that point, it would be necessary to place a groundcover bed around the tree ... a proportionately sized one, not a tutu. I wish someone had cut off the lower limb when it was 1/2" diameter instead of allowing it to grow into a competing trunk. We can't see if it could still be removed.

We are now ready for landscape design help. We have removed all of the shrubbery on the left side of the house. And all of the pavers have been moved to the backyard for future use. ( unless someone has an idea of how they could be used up front. Although I understand that a curved sidewalk would be an improvement over what we have, there is no budget for that right now. The plan is to resod in the spring. This is north facing, so very shady. I have so many design dilemmas! To the right of the front porch: If you look at the second and third pictures in my original post, you’ll see that the area to the right of the sidewalk is huge. I purchased a green Japanese maple ( smallish weeping Viridis) to put in there somewhere. Should I leave room for more grass on the right side of the side walk or just plant the whole thing? Also on the right side of the porch, there is only about 39” between the ground and the bottom of the windows. Need suggestions for what to plant there that wouldn’t need constant pruning ( don’t like gardenias because the brown flowers stay on the plant). If I plant low shrubs under the windows does everything else planted in there need to be as lower lower or can I punctuate with some taller shrubs as I get further out. Any suggestions for a mix of shrubs, or even forms, would be appreciated. To the left of the porch. If you refer to the first picture in this string, You’ll see that a very large bed of shrubbery was in front of the house. Once we cleared that out, there is now an extremely have extremely large area (about 28 feet from left to right and 36 feet from front to back.) . Because the house is small, I’m thinking of that bed somewhat narrower so that it isn’t so much in front of the house, but more to the side.I already purchased a Japanese stewartia to plant there ( sale at the nursery).Etsy sale I purchased 234 limelight hydrangeas. Also, to the left of the porch, there about 5 ft between the bottom of the window and the ground. Looking for suggestions on what to plant there. If I plant something different here than on the right side, would I want to somehow use some of the plants from the right side on this side as well to create balance? Any ideas for plantings in this area would be appreciated as well. I I did see some soft touch mahonia that I loved and wondered whether they would look good under the windows on the left, with maybe whatever we plant on the right side in front of those. Additionally, I would really appreciate suggestions for what to plant in that left corner. Thanks for your ideas!

I feel like because you have a front door already. This should be a sliding glass door. Or French doors. That will solve a lot of the prob 😊 After that I’d probably paint. ( White?) Pave the driveway. And update the walkways and lighting. This house has so so much potential! Love it.