Personally, I'd consider what I intended to plant in those beds and shape/size them accordingly. FWIW, approximately 42sf isn't a great deal of space to accomodate much and even adopting your proposed additional curves is not creating much of an increase and may be visually awkward (too tight) in reality. Also the oblique angle with which the beds intersect with the lawn is likely to provide mowing maintenance headaches.

gardengal is right about mowing. Shape the beds so that the mower can get to all of the lawn. Also, what are you planning on planting there? Your biggest circle is only about 3 feet in diameter, which is a single perennial clump, in many case, once it reaches full size. If you want shrubs, which are a good idea, since the perennials will disappear in winter and leave you with mulch and brown sticks, you'll need to make the beds much bigger.

Decide what you want to plant there first.

Thank you for the suggestion about deciding what to plant first. I guess, that's where I am also stumped. The house faces east, so I get morning sun until about noon, which limits what I can plant. I like Hydrangea macrophylla, Sarcococca and Pieris Japonica "little heath". I think I like shrubs more than perennials in this spot, but how much space do you think I need for that? Any suggestions on what to plant that would work well with the style of my house? Or should I ask that question in another forum?

You can use almost anything with your house, but I think natives and old fashioned shrubs would look especially nice. Hydrangea macrophylla will probably be killed to the ground every winter in your zone, unless you protect it, and it blooms on year old wood, so you may not get many flowers. I believe 'Endless Summer' blooms on old and new wood, so you may do OK with that. Hydrangea arborescens blooms on new wood, so you'll be sure to get flowers.

As far a space, look up the plant you want, note its mature height and width, and plan to leave some space between the house and shrubs for air circulation and access for maintenance, like cleaning, painting, window washing, etc. Looking them up in more than one place is a good idea, because different books and websites give different sizes for some plants. The Taylor's series of gardening books is a good place to start, there are hundreds of other books available, and your library will probably have some useful books. The internet is a great resource if you use the search tools.

Six hours or more of direct sun is considered full sun. Watch the area on a sunny day, checking it frequently to see where the sun is. I've made a rough sketch of garden areas and made copies of it, using one copy every hour to sketch in where the shade is to see how it progresses throughout the day. You can then take all of your sheets and see how much sun each area gets. You may find that one end of the bed is full sun, the other end is part sun or mostly shade because of shadows cast by the house or nearby trees and large shrubs.

Note: your member page says you live in the U.S. That can mean anything from zone 2 to zone 10 if I'm not mistaken. Is the little "5" in your first post your hardiness zone? You'll have to specify it anytime you ask about plants. The shrub forum has lots of discussion about different shrubs, and you can learn a lot by lurking.

I noticed that you stopped the beds at the corner of your house. I think it would look better if you widened them and continued the beds along the sides of the house.

Pieris Japonica "little heath" is a dwarf, toping out at around 2 feet tall. If you are planting them in front of something taller, that may be fine. However, I think whatever is planted closest to the house should be as tall as the porch floor.

saypoint: Yes, I am in zone 5 in Seattle, WA. I need to figure out to include that in my posts! I've been researching like mad...I have the Sunset Western Garden Book, looking online and numerous trips to the nursery to just educate myself on plants. I've also been keeping tabs on where the sun is in relation to those beds.

vicki ca: That's exactly what I had in mind.. having the pieris in front of something taller. The porch tops out at about 4 feet-- so I was envisioning something that's no taller than that. I just can't figure out what combination of plants would look good.

I think you are using the Sunset zones, which you should specify if that is so. For most purposes the assumption is that you are using the USDA hardiness zones, and yours would be 8.

Maro

Maro: Oh, I had no idea there was a difference! Thanks!

I like the look of H. arborescens when in winter--if you cut them back to 1-2 feet tall, then the sticks are not twiggy and are kind of sculptural in a plain way. Be sure to allow for a generous 4 foot diameter per plant--they grow pretty lush. Since Hydrangeas are Summer flowering, you might look for a second shrub to be Spring flowering, like the Pieris "Little Heath" (although my "Little Heath" does not flower much or at all) or maybe one of the very dwarf, small leafed rhodies like "Blue Tit" (which responds pretty well to shearing if you find that you need to control the size). Also, you could think about underplanting the hydrangea with hardy Cyclamens coum and hederifolium--one flowers in Fall and the other in Spring.

My thought about the size of the planting beds is to make a simple curve, not a compound one, but connect it to the path further from the house so the beds will be bigger.

I just had another thought...maybe your bed lines could extend in a curve from the sides of the property to a point further along the path, thereby widening the look of the beds from the street. For access across the planting bed to your side yard(s) you could simply place a generous-sized flagstone to bridge the planting bed.

Just my amateur .02--trained designers are welcome to bash this idea if it is not good.

I too would wrap the beds along the side of the house - the loose curves you seem to desire would make a bit more sense if you were looking at a larger planting area. And soften some of the very geometric presence of the house.

Zone 8 Seattle/western WA opens you up to a very large selection of plants at your disposal. With as many broadleaf evergreens as we have to choose from, there is no reason to necessarily have anything bare or twiggy in winter unless you prefer it. The house is very symmetrical in appearance and more or less symmetrical plantings in the front would be appropriate. Personally, I'd consider something rather columnar in habit tucked in next to the steps on either side (Euonymus 'Green Spire', Ilex 'Sky Pencil' - neither get very tall or wide) with something softer and more mounding in the foreground. Pieris 'Little Heath' is a great choice - remains very compact and is plenty colorful enough all year without flowering. Combines well with any number of other plants as well. Pick for form and foliage first - flowers should be a tertiary consideration.

Sarcococca is not an ideal plant for an eastern exposure unless there is considerable shade - it will bleach out and perform poorly in much sun.

I should mention that we are thinking about selling our house in about a year. So, I want the front yard to look clean and neat. Going in a completely different direction...I came up with this photoshop rendering of something more formal looking. But, I'd like some brutally honest opinions about this. Like it or hate it?

{{gwi:32312}}

I like how the phormium fills that space. But there's not much color with this plan. No flowers. I do like the idea of an evergreen shrub that flowers that can fill the space like the phormium can with smaller plants down below in front. I guess I can always do a rhodie, but I feel like they're overused in the NW. I love the look of hydrangeas, their leaves and blooms.. is there something similar that isn't deciduous?

I love phormiums and grow several kinds myself. However, I don't think they are best used in that application as foundation plants. They seem too modern against your craftsman style porch. I'd much rather see rhodies, camellias, azaleas, gardenias, pieris japonica, or other broad leafed evergreens there, even though they are overused. I don't care for the row of meatballs as a front border.

If you do decide to go with phormiums, you should know that the flowers on phormiums are not their main attraction. Flowering can be somewhat unpredictable, and the flowers are not necessarily very attractive.

In the first pictures it looks like your soil may be piled up against your house siding. If it's against a painted concrete foundation, that's fine, but if left piled up against wood siding, it will encourage wood rot and subterranean termites.

The good thing about your last photoshop post is that you are trying out forms and sizes and location. That is a good start. Even though you have used examples of actual plants, it gives you the chance to see what the "form" and shape do there. That lets you see what form looks good , and then you can check in books or other forums (although you've been given some good suggestions for actual shrubs here, too) for the actual shrubs. The ones you've got there are too architectural for you home, as noted by vicki.

In general you are trying to work too tightly up against the house and in those corners. As several people have noted you need not just make the beds bigger, but move them out more from the house. That is necessary not only for the size of shrub that you need, which need to be more closely proportioned to the decking and stair height, but also because you need a couple of feet of breathing room behind the mature extent of the shrubs, to protect your home's exterior, from both the mounding of any soil and some breathing room behind the branches of the shrubs. So the plantings would be generally in those areas but more loosely around the house corner and extending more to the base of the stairs and maybe a bit along the sidewalk, more billowy/arching. If you are going to sell in a year then the most important thing is that nothing appears to have impaired the home structure or grown weedy/messy or look hard to change, and it may not matter at all what the landscape design looks like, other than that some plantings will have more innate appeal than others.

Thank you so much for your suggestions so far. This is very helpful. Everyone seems to agree I need to widen my beds, but I'm not really understanding how to do that.

In the meantime - here's another version with just Pieris Japonica as the main focal point. What to plant below just in front? Anything at all?

{{gwi:32313}}

What do you think of this? Ignore the terrible Photoshop job.

{{gwi:32314}}

The pieris are bigger, and they aren't centered on the porch wall. If they are centered on anything, it's the bottom of the posts. The bed is the way it needs to be to naturally flow around the shrubs.

My father used to wear a shirt with a separate collar, you attached it with a stud at the back and another at the front. I tried it and as smart as it looked I found it difficult to breath, these pictures remind me of that. I feel like the house is breathing in to accomodate such an obvious arrangement when it would be much happier in an open necked shirt. I would even go as far as to say that the house looks better without a shirt.

One thing about the containers on the side of the stairs.

Your front door is off center with regard to the steps, which is a perfectly lovely look. Don't try to be symetrical, then, with the containers. It will look nicer to have pots only to the right of the door and down the steps. In other words, keep the path up the stairs and directly to the door free, and put containers down the steps on the right, OR only one large container on the right.

This doesn't address your bigger issue, but it's an easy quick fix and I think you'll like the way it looks.
Patty

madgallica: Wow! That was a quick photoshop job! That definitely has me rethinking the pieris there.. if it gets that big. The bed is definitely not big enough. Hmmm...

inkognito: Interesting reference to the collared shirt. Although I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to! Care to elaborate?

barefootintc: You are SO right about those containers. Something about those containers really bugged me..but I didn't know what. I thought that it felt unbalanced, so I added the urn in the back-- but what I should really do is just do one pot next to the door. I'll have to move those containers somewhere else! Thanks for your suggestion!