Good bed layout for banks of broadleaf evergreen shrubs. Rather than dropping in a few of them in obvious locations only and stewing over which particular ones see Grant, Garden Design Illustrated - a unique classic reprinted many times and appearing more than once at a used book store near me for about 5 bucks or so. Better to plan the whole thing at once to get a nice coordinated display of flowers and leaf textures. You need flowing plantings that follow the tone established by the bed shapes and lawn - a restful landscape picture.

I have to say- that is the BEST raised ranch renovation I have ever seen! Kudos to your architect- he/she deserves a heck of a fruit basket.

There are some great varieties of junipers that could hang over the wall, I myself like Blue Rug, but there are many others. I also also believe some short flowering shrubs, not familiar with CA plants, would enhance the proparty during the growing season. I think you need small flowering trees instead of tall trees to bring your house onto the lot. You already have some specimens whether they are yours or your neighbors.

Here is a link that might be useful: Propagating Perennials

Rhodies, camellias and azaleas as layers in front of those low windows will completely block your light, your wife is absolutely right about that. At best, you should probably consider only the lowest growing Azaleas, or perhaps one of the lowest growing Camellia sasanqua varieties only. Ferns would also work nicely in the area immediately adjacent the low windows. If you want height against this wall of windows, while at the same time preserving light into the basement, you would be better off putting the tree(s) further away from the house, out in the lawn. Azara might be another choice to consider, or a Mayten tree.

For the draping of the walls, one of the Junipers such as J. conferta could work nicely, or one of the trailing Rosemary shrubs, although these attract bees. Myoporum parvifolium 'Dwarf Pink Form' or Vinca minor 'Illumination' could also work well as trailing ground covers over these walls.

I don't know if you had considered water use when deciding on your planting scheme, but EVERYTHING you have chosen, including all that lawn, will probably suffer greatly if we go into drought mode/water rationing again. You may want to reconsider whether the shrub/ground cover plantings and trees at the front might be less water using in case we are required to reduce landscape water use in the future.

Especially in the Bay Area, that's a really beautiful raised ranch. You have done some wonderful work and are to be congratulated for a sympathetic and inspired update to what is so often a mis-handled architecture!

Although I love Japanese maples, I think maybe you should consider using some other trees - a flowering cherry, or small magnolia, perhaps, for contrast. I'd place it on the LH side, where it wouldn't obscure the frontal view of your house.

On the RH side put smaller subshrubs - maybe a Loropetalum rubrum whose purple leaves would nicely echo your red-leafed Japanese maples, for instance, along with any other interesting foliage/flowering subshrubs (defined as those less than 4' tall at maturity) to make a pleasing textural contrast to the fine green grass blades and textures of your house materials.

This is L. rubrum (the chartreuse leaves contrasting with it are a rare Lavatera 'Aureum'):
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A plant I'm very fond of is the dwarf Rhaphiolepsis indica, variety 'Ballerina'. It has a wonderful dark green leaf with tan undersides, and flowers with pretty pink flowers twice a year for me. I have several, and one is right next to the loropetalum. They look good together. The color of the leaves is much more pleasing than the standard R. indica, which gets quite tall compared to its 4' dwarf cousin. Small metallic blue berries sometimes appear, and the flowers are self-cleaning (no need to deadhead, which is a relief).

This is R. indica 'Ballerina':
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I don't know where you are in the Bay Area, but I'm in the Oakland hills, and I find even in north-facing beds, a lot of supposedly full-sun plants will do extremely well in such open areas as yours, where the UV index is actually quite high since there's no nearby shade.

If you wanted something fairly temporary on the RH bed edges, I'd plant white or purple Lantana montevidensis, the trailing kind. Plant two 1-quart container plants, 3' inside the edge and 4' apart, and they will quickly spread nicely to cover a good part of the area. Mine grow down a wall to 6' long, despite being clipped once a year. It will mound slightly at the crown, but the trailing stems won't root anywhere, unlike many groundcovers. So it will be easily pulled out when you go to redo your walk. The stems are brittle, so it's easy to clip to keep within bounds.

These are plants easily available, inexpensive and easy to take care of, that will stand up to that gorgeous doggy you've got running around! None of them are thorny or unfriendly to people or pets. They all should complement your collection of Japanese maples, as well.

In looking over what I've written, I realize I'm encouraging you to broaden some of the choices in your landscaping. I have what is probably a smaller lot than you, 5600 sq. ft. of which 2000+ sq. ft. is broken up into 15 mostly rectangular, fairly small beds. One of my beds is entirely north-facing, sited between my neighbor's house and ours. The 'Emperor One' Japanese maple really looks beautiful in a mixed bed planting (there are 3 rhodies/azaleas in this bed, you just can't see them from this angle), like this:
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bboy - thanks, I'll try to find that book at the "recycled" bookstore in our neighborhood. I forgot to mention that she wants to limit everything to a few colors (reds, blues, and purples). I'm more of an anything-goes kind of guy.

marcinde - Thanks. I'll get myself that fruit basket! Actually, we did have an architect, but he planned a renovation that cost 3x our stated budget to him, and charged us an arm and a leg for our troubles. I ended up adding all of the architectural details as we were working on the remodel (did most of it ourselves). He didn't add any of the craftsman-like details. That was all me. It's funny, my wife didn't like the paint colors we eventually picked, but now that it's up, she loves it. We've had ~10 people randomly come by over the last 18 months and ask for our specific color names/numbers! I just wish I was as good at landscaping as I was as remodeling!

I'm an Arts & Crafts nut myself, so I like it!

Shawn, I didn't read your last entry until now...about the colors and stuff. I'm going to suggest a couple of things that I grow personally, but I'm not sure where in the SF bay area you are in. I do think you need something to cascade over the walls to soften them up. Since you wife likes blue, a prostrate rosemary would be perfect for that. Alternatively I would suggest a prostrate form of Grevillea lanigera...if you can find it. It's equally drought tolerant and probably faster growing (but the flowers aren't blue). If you decide to go for a couple of small, blooming trees on either side of the house, I was going to suggest Metrosideros 'Springfire'. The blooms are reddish-orange. Alternatively Metrosideros 'Gala' has somewhat variegated leaves with redder blooms. Both trees are mostly upright, evergreen grey-green leaves, and don't get too tall (maybe 18 feet max). In front, up against the low-lying windows I was going to suggest either Grevillea baueri or Podocarpus nivalis. The Grevillea would have to be trimmed periodically to encourage denseness...but it's a lovely plant. Finally, I was going to suggest a small Tabebuia chrysotricha in the front center. The only problem is it has brilliant, bright yellow blooms. As a tree, it doesn't get very big and can be trimmed really in an exotic way because of its sprawly growth habit. However, if your wife likes something a bit more more tidy, I'd suggest Sophora secundiflora with it's beautiful blue blooms. Both trees are slow growing and drought tolerant and don't get very big.

-Ron-

Since you want to limit your color palette and already grow some azaleas, have you tried the Encore reblooming azaleas yet? I have 'Autumn Embers' and it's already rebloomed twice in two months - but it is a hungry and thirsty plant, more so than the standard varieties.

I haven't put this in the ground yet because it came to me half-dead (do not EVER buy plants from Park Seed - seeds, yes, plants no!) and I was pleased to find it has recovered pretty well. HD was carrying some, but they wouldn't differentiate the colors and I specifically wanted a red Encore, so had to mail order it. The bloom is red with a hint of orange, but it seems to fade to dark pink as the blooms die off:
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Hi,
your path layout is amazingly similar to what I recently proposed for a show garden; so I'm curious - is the reason you're going to change the walkway because it's uncomfortable? Too curvy? Too narrow? How often do you use it - do you usually enter through the garage?
I ask also because there's a good sized planting area between the driveway and walkway now, and I'm not sure if making it smaller is a good idea.
As for the basement windows, I think they add character to your house - so don't hide them completely! My eye doesn't call for extra "softening" with plants - the color scheme of the house does that already, making the house sit quite comfortably in the landscape.

Hope this doesn't make things more confusing...

I agree with timbu that the house doesn't really call for much in the way of plants. It's a beautiful renovation! I'm a plant nut but this house stands very firmly and confidently on its own I think. Too many plants/too many colors would spoil the clean straight-forward look of the house. At the most, I'd consider some subdued draping plants for the walls by the driveway - something with blue-gray foliage perhaps. I like the idea of trailing rosemary.

I agree that the path needs changing. The curve looks odd - it takes you out of your way and is at odds with the rest of the straight-forward look of the house. It looks like there was originally something different there...? The straight bit of concerete that ends by the dog was that part of an original walkway or sidewalk?

I am not well versed on plants native to California, but I did live near Seattle and your style of home is reminiscent to many in that area..I'll try to offer my take..

Rhododendrons....I would go with the deep purples or corals

Azaleas...I would actually stick with white

How about an Alaskan Weeping cedar on the corner? It will give height but the branches are not dense...but feathery and light.

I think a nice lace leaf Japanese maple that curves back down to the ground would be a nice accent on the side of the path.

Can you fit one decorative cherry tree on a portion of the yard? It would give height and dappled shade to azaleas beneath.

I would think a cluster of those mounding yellow/green juniper type (it's not a juniper but it grows like one) would be a nice touch..I also like Otto Luyken Laurels in clusters....

HTH!
Tara

Sorry to be so absent here for the last few days. My wife and I read (and researched) each comment thoroughly and came up with a sorta-plan before we went out nursery-browsing on Saturday.

We agreed with timbu that more of a minimalist approach would be best, as to not detract from the house, and to allow us to add plant material later if we want to augment it. It would also help with the water conservation issue, which I obviously did not consider early enough in the overall landscape process. We do plan on reducing the size of the right-side grass when we re-do the walkway in a year's time or so.

I'll follow up with pictures soon, but here's what we ended up doing:

On the left/right sides of the driveway, we sunk sandstone rock clusters into the dirt, and planted lavender around those (this mimics what we did in front of the 4' tall fence on the front border of the property). On the left had side, we added a tree - a different species Japanese maple. We couldn't resist. We really wanted something different, like an Autumn Fantasy or October Glory maple, but were concerned with a) it being to close to the driveway and b) it being too big. We had a flowering cherry on the cart at one point, but neither of us was in love with it - thought it might look out of place. We also places 4x trailing rosemary along the driveway wall on each side, spaced about 4' apart. Hopefully those will trail nicely and soften that harsh wall.

In front of the windows, I didn't get my camelias. You're all absoultely right - TOO BIG! We ended up getting four rhodies to go nearest the windows, followed by a row of gardenias, and lastly a row of white azaleas (who knew costco sold azaleas).

We plan to get a large truckload of wood chips delivered in the coming week to cover all the dirt that still is exposed.

The wife is very happy with the finished product, and I'm fine with it (no love, no hate).

Thanks to all for your inputs. I fear we're not nearly experimental enough for this group here, as we didn't budge too much from our comfort zone. But cost and time were unfortunate constraints here. I wish I could start over completely with the landscape design here (and wish I had $100k to spend on it!).

Thanks again.

-Shawn

Would you like to share pictures of the "after"?

I'd just like to add my two cents worth about the camelias. Besides being dense and too big, this is a plant you get just for the flowers if you like them enough; the plant itself is invariably a big blobby thing with no lines.

The same really goes for flowering cherries, so good pick.

And yes, trees. Away from the house, it looks like you have room for some height in the long run. I'd want to use that room.

KarinL

It's been a while, but I'm back with pictures as promised. We've been working our tails off for an "open house" and now that that's over, I'm finally back to follow-up.

The album below shows pictures of the landscaping we did as part of this post front yard, either side of driveway, and in front of the main front windows), as well as the rest of the landscaping. It's a before/after slideshow we put together for the open house party we had this weekend, which was the culmination of 3.5 years of non-stop landscaping and remodeling. Ignore the "inside" pictures.

Thanks to you all for the inputs. We really like the way the front landscaping turned out!

-Shawn {{gwi:18590}}Dry Creek - Before and After