what about a trellis on each side of the windows with some climbing roses. A nice tall bird bath in the middle and maybe a mailbox in the corner next to the door...i have one of these for all my small garden tools. Having something that climbs up the mailbox but not another rose but definately something flowery and showy. Then fill in with a few greeneries (hosta, and things things like that) and annuals and perennials with lots of color. I think color is the big thing. If the shrubs could go you could extend the flower bed on around and just make the color flow nicely, at which point i would move the mailbox from the corner to the other corner where the brick and siding meet. You could also place a nice shepherds hook with a cute birdhouse in the front bed or anywhere for that matter. Very cute house if i may add...and you can grow a ton of houseplants with all those windows there...is that a heated area?

Congratulations on building your new home. Based on our experience here are a few things you should look into: 1) Whether your shed (accessory building) is allowed in your zoning code. 2) The maximum sq ft of the accessory building that is allowed. 3) How far does it need to be setback from your property line. This varies between municipalities. 4) Make sure your Crabapple tree (Malus spp). is going to do well in your plant hardiness zone. http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/ 5) Regarding the shrubs, in our planting designs we try to only specify plants that are native to the state and region, because of reduced irrigation and maintenance needs. In looking at your pictures, we think that the swale should be usable space for recreation and repose. The trees can be located near the deck for privacy purposes; we recommend planting mature trees (large gallon size) because of higher survivability rates. If you are using the Crabapple tree for privacy, take into account that their canopy range is between 10'-25' diameter depending on the species. Also keep in mind that Crabapple is deciduous, which means you may want to consider a mix of deciduous and coniferous (evergreen). Lastly, we think you should cluster your plantings along the edges of the sides of the property (not in front of the swale); this would make your back yard look bigger. Good luck with the improvements and please post pictures when your done! -DR, Landscape Designer

"... I know it won't get as tall as what you drew in ..." What I drew was a rough scheme, not a plan, so you shouldn't take it too literally, but as a guide of relative proportions. I think most people would want the front shrub (position #3 in the sketch) to be evergreen so as to carry the house through the winter. I'm not hard and fast on that as some deciduous can provide a lot of winter interest, too -- dried hydrangea flowers being one of those. I don't think I'd also want the next plant (#2, which wraps the house corner) to also be hydrangea. It would be too much similarity, making it harder for either to make a distinctive statement for its particular position. If it was me, I'd let #2 be a perennial, especially a long blooming or colorful foliage one if you can find such a thing. "I'm wondering if I should rethink this plan." There is a much greater chance of the answer being, "Yes," if one focuses too much, too early, on smaller details and aspects of the project. (A love of plants is one of the common early distractions!) It is best to start by looking at the big picture and taking stock of one's goals and objectives, which should be recorded on paper. Before thinking any more about plants, it would be good to have final resolution on the bed line, bench placement, any path or paved area for the bench. The bed line for the foundation planting seems to be resolved, but it seems there is not yet a commitment for the perimeter planting bed. If you take new pictures, please do it in the standard format of taking a complete, whole scene with the camera remaining stationary for the entire scene. These directions are for capturing the foundation planting area. It merely pivots but does not change location. The front face of the house would be one scene and the left side of the house would be another separate scene. Each scene is taken by lining the camera up with the center of the scene. (For the front house face, it would be lined up with the front door. For the side scene, the camera would be lined up halfway between the front yard corner and the basement driveway corner. Usually, the camera distance from the house needs to be positioned about at the city sidewalk or the curb, depending on how far that is from the house. Since your yard is shallow, it's probably the curb. Once the camera is at the correct position, takes a panning series of slightly overlapping shots, shooting from far left to far right capturing all portions of the yard that can be seen from that spot if one were just standing there looking with their eyes and not the camera. After that, it is usually best to walk across the street and take another distant shot that captures the whole yard (relevant portion) in a single picture so we can see what it looks like from the neighbors' point of view.

Don't think of this as a plan, but as an unfinished, tweakable scheme that could be a starting point for figuring out a layout. At the beginning, don't focus on planting, but on hardscape and layout geometry. The planting will adjust to it. There's still a good bit of the back yard that is hidden from us ... the back of house and west side of garage. About running a fence across the neighbor's garage, I presume the goal is to hide as much of the garage as possible. The problem is that you'll only be able to hide part of the wall with a fence that ends up, after weathering, to be probably not as good looking as the wall could be if it had new paint. There might be regulations against doing this because it would prevent your neighbor from accessing his wall for maintenance or inspection purposes. Consider conferring with the neighbor and explain the dilemma. Since he can't see it, he may be completely fine with you painting the wall the color of your choice. I doubt he's given any thought before.