Dawn, A good way to deal with the symetrical issue is to think in terms of balance, or weight. If you decide to put a tree on one side of the bed, balance out the other side with a grouping of three lower, wider shrubs. What plantings are already in the bed?

I agree that an asymetrical look would better emphasize the house.

Patty

Hi Patty,

Right now the bed has variegated liriope around the edges and spirea shrubs in the center. The plants are in good shape, but I'm considering ripping some out or moving some around (would be difficult to move the shrubs though). It's too darned orderly for me the way it is now... LOL

I like the idea of shrubs on the right side, but would that be too many with the shrubs in the center also? Plus, I have so many shrubs up against the house (too many for me).

I should also say that I have already bought the tree that will be going in... although I'm pretty sure I'm going to get scolded (by those of you who know better) for getting a tree that will get so large. Couldn't help myself - I love these trees - I bought a Dawn Redwood. I have no idea how fast it will grow, but I liked the soft feathery look of it and the fact that I won't have tons of leaves but it's still deciduous.

Okay everyone, don't hold back - I can take it (as I duck behind my computer monitor) LOL

Dawn

A term that pops up on this board is "perimeter-itis". It is the condition of planting around the perimeter of your house, the perimeter of your yard, then around your trees, your mailbox, etc. There is a reason that many of people suffer from this condition...it is easy!

I look at your planting and I don't see any context. I don't see a reason for that bed to be there. Then again, maybe that is just me. Maybe I am design challenged and forever doomed to suffer from perimeteritis. With the pear trees in place, I could see where this bed would have a reason to exist. Without them it just looks like a peanut in the front of your yard.

I am curious what others think for my own sake. I am designing some beds in my front yard, but my yard is smaller than yours and I have a decent sized maple tree that anchors my front yard and defines a lot of what I can do. Does a bed like this need a context? an ancor? a reason to exist? or can it exist just for the sake of adding some color and texture to an otherwise sea of grass?

- Brent

Brent,
I've seen the "perimeter-itis" term mentioned and I think it's very accurate. I very much enjoyed reading your comments and agree with what you've said. Since I can't take any credit (or shame!) for this landscape design thus far, my gardener's ego is not involved at all... lol.

I definitely agree that right now that island bed has no real anchor or focus, which is why I'm ready to make some decisions and move forward with re-doing it. I've bought a tree that will be planted on the left side of the "peanut", to give me a start. What I'm struggling with right now is how to modify the shape of the bed to reflect my desire to move towards more of an non-symmetrical landscape (much more in keeping with my personality). Or should it be modified at all? Maybe not. I'm totally stuck on this, for some reason.

I'm adding two additional (more recent and slightly better) photos to hopefully give a better idea of what the whole front yard looks like. I would also be interested in what others feel about the rest of the yard (foundation plantings, etc). It feels very overgrown and claustrophobic to me, but I'm curious if anyone else gets that feeling also.

{{gwi:33694}}
Please ignore the current state of the grass-filled island - I've obviously neglected it. You can see where I've started clearing out the left side, however. :-)

{{gwi:35896}}
Shows left side of the bed, remaining yard and driveway. I apologize for not getting it all in one picture - I was standing in my neighbor's driveway as it was, trying to get it all in.

Dawn

From here it looks pretty good as it follows the contours, occupying a sort of swale like shrubby vegetation might in nature. Just needs some taller plants. Would also be better if the beds were off to the sides and the lawn flowed up to the house without a bed running across the center of it--if you were starting from scratch or hadn't decided on having a bed where you put this one already.

"I would also be interested in what others feel about the rest of the yard (foundation plantings, etc). It feels very overgrown and claustrophobic to me, but I'm curious if anyone else gets that feeling also. "

In this way, your house is much like mine in that:
Bushes cover up the porch and an architectural feature (i.e. porch and railings.
All of the shrubs and trees in front of (and behind the house) seem to be very similar in color. Are all of the plantings in front of the house coniferous as well?

My house, with mature landscaping, has the same problem. Someone planted a million arborvitae (think tree wall) along with more large pines and coniferous evergreen shrubs. So, what we have is a mass of evergreen, coniferous trees and shrubs. Wow, not really a treat for the eyes.

At least your bed provides some contrast. You may want to replace some of your foundation plantings with more interest in regards to color, leaf texture and shape.

For example, I was looking at taking out some of my arborvitae and putting in a shorter, fatter, yellow conifer along with a taller, skinny, leafy, deciduous purple tree. The colors would play off of each other (yellow and purple) the shapes and leaf textures provide a contrast highlighting each tree (short and fat and piney along with tall and skinny and leafy). I hate to quote the actual varieties now, because I don't have the information in front of me.

Whatever you go with in the foundation plantings, you can mirror some of those colors and shapes in the planting bed.

HTH!

Dk, thanks for the front view because it really does show how overfilled your front lawn is...hmmm. I'm in favor of completely eliminating that front bed. Remove the spirea and liriope and plant them elsewhere. Plant your tree off center and be done with it.

Patty

bboy,
I agree - I would have preferred the bed off to the side somehow and not smack in the middle of the lawn like that. Since it was there when I bought the house though, I didn't have the chance to make that decision. You're right though, it does need something taller!

organicshadegardener,
The shrubs in front of the covered porch alternate between hollies and red barberries. The color contrast between them is attractive, but there are sharp pointy things everywhere (I'm thinking that's not ideal for guests walking to the front door) and I have to constantly prune them to keep them from growing above my windows or out over the walk. I'm considering ripping a few out, but haven't decided exactly what I want it to look like yet. I figure I should just tackle one thing at a time or I'll get overwhelmed and nothing will get done!

The trees against the left side of the house are a cherry (not sure what kind) and a star magnolia... both deciduous. The shrubs underneath them are yews, which are getting way too big (I prune them alot also). Moving right, there is a huge oakleaf hydrangea (partially hidden by the magnolia, growing taller than the window), a large mass of coneflowers (those things reseed like crazy) with a rose bush and azalea stuck in the middle (???) and then a dwarf alberta spruce. On the right side of the house are a few clumps of ornamental grass (grass monsters) and a very large conifer (spruce?) that is way too close to the house. I have to do something about it, but I don't know that I can bring myself to take down a large and apparently healthy tree. I'm going to try to get a better (and closer) picture of the foundation planting area tonight.

Patty,
Omigosh, I never even considered removing the bed altogether! I'll definitely have to think about that idea. Now see, THIS is one of the reasons I knew I should ask you guys... you're helping me to see things in a way I haven't been able to. Thank you for that. :-)

Dawn

Remove the bed? Hmmm...I am not sure I would go that far. Sometimes it is nice to think about what you would do if you were starting with a blank slate. Would you create this bed? Probably not, but the reality is that you are not starting with a blank slate. One downside of the bed location is that it seems to create a dead space out by the road.

I like the idea of planting a tree on the left side. I also do not like the idea of putting in another tree on the right side. Maybe if you just planted a tree on the left, you could shorten the bed. I don't know much about Dawn Redwoods, but I agree that they are pretty trees (and if they named a tree after me I might want to plant one as well!). Adding some boulders is always and option.

I guess it comes back to what you want to do with your front yard. If you want more privacy from the street, then maybe you should plant more trees and shrubs. If you want to play croquet, then maybe you should remove the existing shrubs.

- Brent

Hi Brent,

Yes, now that I've been thinking about it and spent some more time tonight walking around my yard, I do think I will keep the bed in some shape or form. I already have plenty of lawn and I'm not a fan of croquet either... so I think that gives me my answer in regards to that idea.

I've thought about adding some large rocks/boulders, but wasn't sure if it would be appropriate for the area. I love them when they look natural and part of the landscape, but I don't know if I can pull that off in this yard. I think I might experiment with some though, just to see.

One thing I've been wondering is if I should enlarge the bed and extend the right side so that it curves around and up to the right front foundation planting area (meaning it becomes one large planting area). It would be alot of work to remove all the sod though and I'm not sure if there would be any mowing problems if I did that.

Thanks for your thoughts - they are much appreciated!

Dawn

Here is one more picture of the front yard taken from the driveway. It gives a different perspective and view of the island bed.

{{gwi:33695}}

I think once you get that tree in on the left side you'll improve the look of the bed a great deal. Then if you mix up the plantings so you have various heights and textures, you won't be bothered by the symmetry of the bed's shape.

The plantings in front of the porch show nice contrast and texture, but for my money there are waaaay too many of them. But yeah, as you say, one thing at a time!

You don't like the island bed, so you're going to put a tree into it so you might like it better. The bed has no reason for being so you're going to put a reason into it. To me this is backwards.

Ignore the island bed and plan the placement of your tree. Pretend the bed simply isn't there. Put the tree where it will look best for your house and where the shade will be the most welcome (on driveway, on porch, whatever) and where it will fit sightlines (block what you don't want to see, allow what you do want to see). Oh, and consider where sewer and water lines and electrical services are...

THEN place and shape the bed to complement the tree.

Start with what you KNOW you want, and the other stuff will fall into place far better.

Ah, now I see the foundation plantings! Thanks for the photo. I still stand by the recommendation of echoing the colors from the foundation plantings to planting bed, it will only serve to bring out the hues, especially at a distance (i.e. from the street.)

Just my $0.02 on a Friday afternoon...

There is always some give and take, but when it comes to divvying up area between grass and plants there are two high level approaches. You can define the area that you want to be plantings and let the rest be grass or you can define the area that you want to be grass and let the rest be plantings. I think I tend to prefer the later approach where it is the lawn that is given a defined shape.

When I look at your front yard I envision some trees out toward the road and an oval of lawn in the center. It would not be a true oval as the grass would extend to the driveway and connect to your side yard.

- Brent

I like karins thinking on this one. To put it more bluntly, you are trying to make someone elses notion of the way a garden should look your own by adapting to it rather than making it adapt to you. Slow down. That island bed makes no sense and the foundation planting is just what foundation planting has come to mean. If you like it leave it. You have enough plants to make an exiting entrance they just need moving about a bit.

I'm going to suggest another route...

I personally think the planting in the island bed does more for the house than the row of gobblygook shrubs that are demanding so much effort. I do agree that the island is unconnected, so connect it. Extend it to the driveway side and curve over to the walk, making an inside curvalinear thing from the lawn. Remove all the oversized shrubs, rehabilitate them into their natural habits and plant them in groups in the bed you make and out into the "island" in smaller groups to tie it together. The foundation planting should just be a carpet of groundcover, maybe something that is repeated from the island in a lesser degree.

maybe try it like this?

{{gwi:35897}}

Just curious--how busy is your street? Where I live, there are many beds like yours to serve as a buffer between house and busy street. It's rarely done nicely, so those floating beds do tend to look weird. But when well-done, those silly beds can be nice from the lived-in side, and just take more work to make them nice from the street side.

Yours needs work, or to be erased. But dopey as they look when half-done like yours, they can add alot of liveability to a front yard. It all depends on where you are and what you want your front yard to be.

It'd be a shame to obscure your house much. Hopefully you don't need a plant barrier. But if you'd enjoy your porch better with one, by all means, redo that floater!

If you do decide to change/move the bed, use your mower to define it. That way you will know for sure that it is easy to mow around.

Turn that peanut into a kidney!

I apologize to everyone for the delay in getting back to this message (I was out of town)... and wow, thanks so much for all of your helpful suggestions and thoughts! I have alot to think about. My first plan is to remove the larger shrubs surrounding the entrance so it isn't so claustrophobic-feeling.

I took some additional (and closer) pics of the walkway and entrance of my home, and as soon as I saw them it was obvious I needed to start taking some of the existing mature plantings out! (see pics below... ugh)

I promptly started removing things that looked out of place or plants I didn't care for... and then invited my sister over to dig up and take whatever she wanted (well, within reason, LOL). She filled up the back of her husband's pickup with stuff from my yard, so it was definitely a win-win situation for both of us. While the changes are minor so far, it already looks better. No pics of the changes yet though.

Oh - and my new tree was planted by my awesome dad while I was out of town! I love it (included a picture of that below also).

Again - thank you to everyone who is helping to point me in the right direction... you guys are awesome!!

Walkway to front door. Difficult to tell from the picture, but the shrubs hang over about 1/3 of the width of the walkway. Two people defintely cannot walk side-by-side.
{{gwi:35898}}

Entrance to home:
{{gwi:35899}}

New tree!
{{gwi:35900}}

Hey, that looks just like my kitty sitting on your sidewalk! :)

What kind of a tree did you put in?

If you were thinking of using the bed or a similar one as a street buffer or area-to-gaze-upon, is it too close to the house now? Should it be closer to the swale or ditch in front of your house? If so, it would really not be too hard to shift it a bit. Also, if you were planting the peanut or a new peanut with more shrubs for those above reasons, some of the ones currently in your foundation planting would be appropriate, I would think (if you have someone who could actually dig them up properly, and dig a new big hole, and you could water them well at first--a lot of if's, I know, and one reason why sometimes a DIY does not work with large specimens), so I might not have them all carted off just yet.

What you're hearing is, don't be afraid to re-draw your landscape lines, and just because there's a bed there now doesn't mean you have to fill it. So a lot of the answers to, what should go here? depend on, what do you want to accomplish? Think about what you want to be surrounded by when you are in your front porch area, what you want to look out on, walk through/past on way to front door, plus see as you drive up to your house.

dejee,
My kitty Riley is my gardening buddy... he follows me from place to place in the yard, laying down on the very weeds I'm trying to pull or finding some other way to get my attention :-).

The tree I planted is a Dawn Redwood. I love the soft feathery needles and the peeling bark. I've never tried one before, but always wanted to. I hope it does well.

frankie, you may be right about the bed being too close to the house. I do think I might like to move it closer to the street, so I'll have to put some thought into that. The tough part would be moving all the plants around - they have been there a long time and most of them are very well established. The shrubs closest to the patio would be difficult to transplant, I think. They are right up against the concrete, so I don't think I could get enough of a rootball to make it work. It would be worth a try though, if I could save and reuse them! Hmmmm...

Dawn

While the Dawn Redwood is an interesting tree, I don't know that I would choose it for that location. Here's a picture of the tree in winter. My neighbor has one, and every winter they get guys with chain saws ringing their doorbell and offering to take down the dead tree.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:35894}}

saypoint,
I actually chose that tree for that location for some of those very reasons. I wanted a tree that would give me sun in the winter/shade in the summer, and I was looking for something that didn't have large leaves because I already have tons of leaves to clean up in the fall in my backyard.

I also wanted a tree that didn't look like every other tree in the neighborhood and that was a bit unusual. I'm always on the hunt for something different in the plant world. :-)

Dawn

I guess people are not use to seeing deciduous conifers. That was the real sign that my pine tree was beyond repair, the stream of tree service companies knocking on the door (it seemed that all had fancy "ABC Tree Service" cards with text at the bottom saying "Please make checks out to Jim Smith"). A friend helped us cut it down and within a day or two, somebody stopped by and ground out the stump for not much more than the rental would have cost us.

Sorry...a bit off topic. It is funny how sometimes pictures make things more obvious. Did you remove stuff from your foundation plantings or the bed in the yard (or both)? With your foundation bed, the real solution may be to replace the walk with one that is wider and further out from your house. I would prefer that the bed in your lawn be shifted out towards the road so that the patch of grass looked like it was put there for a purpose (to kick a soccer ball, throw a football, or set up a tent for your child's open house).

- Brent

That was my idea exactly too, Brent. The foundation plantings look great but the sidewalk is too close to the house and too narrow for the scale of the house and yard.

I am reluctant to suggest things that may not be in someone's budget, but a wider curved walkway, that is more away from the house would do wonders making things look restful and relaxed, rather than scrunched and "busy".

Garden Design major here (the oldest student in the school!) If your budget allows, a curved drive, beginning at the point where the shrubs meet the drive, and then definitely an enlarged bed. Grass is overdone, boring. If a curved drive isn't feasible (brick or pavers would be knockout), I agree 100% with bud wi (previous post). The walk would also be dynamite in pavers of any type, with the walk becoming wider toward the front entrance so that the 'peanut' bed could be enlarged at that end, plantings overhanging the edge of the bed onto the walk. A garden sculpture, statue, pot would provide a focal point as well, off-center in the bed, opposite the tree.

Westy1941

brent, bud, and westy -
I agree with all three of you! I would love to replace that walkway with a wider curved brick path. I've wanted to do this since I moved in almost 2 years ago. Unfortunately, the house has required numerous repairs (and there are still more to do) that has taken up the bulk of my budget.

However, that said, I've never priced how much putting in a nice walkway like that would cost. Anyone have a rough guess? I did have a flagstone patio and steps put in at my previous home, and it was fairly expensive. I had assumed this would be the same.

Anyway, I'm attempting to "fix" my front yard in stages. A few of the plantings in the island bed have been removed (not that anyone would notice though) and given away, and I've also given away perennial divisions in an attempt to get things under control. Like I said, not really noticeable differences yet, but it does look better. I will post more pics as I make progress - right now I'm waiting for the rain to stop so I can get rid of all those weeds in the island bed.

I really enjoy reading everyone's comments. Lots of great ideas!

Dawn

Ok, if you guys are sick of hearing about this, just let me know... :-)

Thought I'd post a few more pictures for additional perspective. The first one is looking down the walkway from the opposite direction, towards the driveway. It gives a better idea of how wide the walk is and how much the plantings are hanging over (even though they were heavily pruned back this spring... and I can't prune them back much more without them looking ridiculous).

The second picture shows the view from where I sit on the porch. Private, yes... but I can't see my yard at all. I think that is a big part of why it bothers me. Maybe just removing a few of the larger plantings in front of the porch will help.

Anyway, here they are.

{{gwi:35901}}

{{gwi:35902}}

Boy your walkway looks SO out of place. That's what I first thought when you posted the driveway perspective picture. Then a few people mentioned it...but that was definately my gut reaction.

Everything is so nicely curved, the beds (and the corner bed at the driveway - walk intersection), the plants, everything...then you have the straight as an arrow walkway throw in.

Suggesting to replace it is obviously one way to deal with it, but what about creating a shallow bed along the walkway, with curved edges, perhaps that mirror whatever you do with your island bed? Or even extend the foundation planting bed on the right side of the door out away from the house a bit, then bring that edge all the way over to the driveway ("swallowing" the walking in the process).

Perhaps mirroring some of the foundation planting plant selections in this bed would help the existing walkway blend in (or rather, not stick out). This approach would also sort of "lay the foundation" for a future walkway replacement...

Also, my initial thought on your bed, from the picture taking from your neighbor driveway, would be to extend the bed to the left, towards your driveway. What jumped into my mind was a large radius that followed the curves of your driveway edge beds. The "vast expanse" of grass on the driveway side of your kidney bed sort of "visually weighs down" the whole picture to me. As someone said, too much grass over there.

I would almost image a gourd shaped bed....although I don't know where that leaves you on the right side of the bed (no real good pictures of that side as a whole). I guess to me, the visual flow of your yard (again, to me) sort of leads to that big grassy space between the driveway and the bed...and there's no reward at the end of that journey.

Sorry I started rambling a bit there. My main point is that your walkway seems terribly "un-integrated" and you have a good opportunity to come up with a cohesive design for your whole front yard which could address that "problem"

I think you are going about it backwards. Rather than figuring out what shape the bed should be, you should determine what shape the lawn should be first. The lawn should 'flow' like water. Leave enough room between the lawn and property line to have a bed wide enough to plant a screen to block bad views and where you have a good view, the lawn can come closer to the property line. Using this approach makes the design more cohesive and eliminates the scattered look of randomly placed beds cut out of the lawn.

Dawn, I'd think the "Dawn" redwood is perfect for you, just based on the name. ;^)