I forgot one more thing, one of the main things I want to know -- does the size and spacing of these plants seem okay? Can I get away with fewer? I hate it when they overgrow each other.

Again, thanks if anyone decides to help.

The plan image is not complete or clear enough to interpret thoroughly.

But my first question is why you feel the need to second guess your designer or present the plan here for critique. One would hope that you have an open dialog with the designer and can easily express any concerns you may have to him/her and ask for any needed clarification. Hopefully you selected this individual based on some understanding of their ability - recommendation from neighbor or friend, referral from a previous client or someone else in the industry, a review of their portfolio of completed work and a vetting of proper references. It seems pretty frivolous to me to bring this issue to an internet board for some sort of approval after the fact.

If you are not comfortable with the design, that is all that matters, not our opinions whether they be professional, well-intended or totally ignorant of the entire process. Spend some time pondering what you have and what, specifically, about it makes you uncomfortable, then go back to your designer with these concerns and work them out together. That's what you are paying the "big bucks" for :-)

I'm not uncomfortable with the plan; I'm uncomfortable with my own knowledge. I'm in the position of approving something I THINK I like, but since I've never done it before, it is somewhat abstract to me at this point.

I do trust the designer, but no one is infallible, and no design is perfect. If she put something on the plan, I'm already pretty sure SHE thinks it's a good idea. And it probably is. That doesn't mean that it definitely is, though.

So if there is something on there that is just plain wrong, or should concern me, I wouldn't necessarily know it, and it's hard to ask someone a question about something if you don't know there should be a question asked in the first place.

Is the image really that hard to see? It shows up fine on my monitor. Just the names aren't clear, but I provided those.

From a quick look, there are couple of things I would want to check.

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When trying to enter the street do the plants on the corner obscure on coming traffic?

Is the drive turn-out such that you can turn the type of cars you drive around? As you back into the turn-out, will you need to let your back tires roll almost to the edge of the concrete with the back of the car sticking out past the end? If so, maybe any plants there sould be low growing so the end of the car can pass over the top without hurting them.

You might want to go to an empty parking lot and lay out the new drive dimensions with some kind of markers. Drive your car on it to see how the turn-out will really work.

That's a good question -- actually, we aren't planning on using the driveway like that. The bump is a place to park a third car, parallel with the driveway, not perpendicular. We have measured it, and when concrete guy measures today, I'll double check. He said he'll curve it a little more on that side, rather than creating the sharper angles.

Right now we have three cars -- we keep two in the garage, and park one in the driveway (not allowed to park overnight on the street in our town). The drive is long enough that I just park the extra car farther back on the driveway and have room to back out the other car around it.

Mainly we just wanted more space if we had to keep a car parked out there (kids and portable basketball goal, etc.). That part of the yard also is kind of useless for grass, and it's hard to keep green in the summer, ie, waste of water. I don't think plants there will obscure street view; it isn't very busy, and it's straight and easy to see cars.

I do plan on asking about the tree, and roots and concrete and things like that. I question if a maple tree won't tear up the new concrete.

OK, I think I understand now - the photo is focusing on the front yard only (that's what happens when you visit GW late at night after a long day in very hot weather!)

Other than resurfacing both the walkway and drive and adding some flagstone pavers, this is just a planting plan - the beds do not seem to have changed significantly in size or form. So essentially you are asking if the plant list is appropriate. I see nothing there that is of glaring concern - Autumn Blaze maples are recommended in my area as appropriate street trees for the simple reason they don't have aggressive roots systems. Burning bush is developing a nasty reputation in some areas of the country as an aggressive invasive, so you might want to research that. Otherwise, the plant list has a good mix with evergreen interest and plants intended to stay within a smaller scale. But for every plant recommended for a specific location in a design plan, there are probably another couple dozen more that would work equally as well. If you like them, then I don't see any issue.

It is a bit hard to tell details from the pictures, but your existing porch, front walk, driveway and plantings do not look too bad. It seems like a lot of money to remove what you have just to replace it with the same thing, only different. What is the general goal of this update?

I like the general plan and plant selection. That courtyard garden with bench will be a nice addition.

You would think that the designer could have drawn an accurate representation of your locust tree canopy. In the pictures it obviously overhands your driveway and front walk. The locust tree is the one thing about your existing landscape that stands out to me. I love trees but that one sure seems to dominate your front yard.

- Brent

I'm male and I think it shows in the garden I like.

I like bold, hard contrast. Big flowers of high intensity color, gaudy as a lady of the night. lol Something that stands up and makes a statement. Stone is good. I'll pass on the tiny washed out flowers, and that goes for foliage too.

Shurbs are fine, but I like some action going on. I want to see growth and change from day to day and you don't get that with shurbs.

Lawn. I hate to mow but I have to have negitive space to accent the beds, and nothing beats grass. Since my lot started with 15% slopes, the lawn was a problem. Grass should be on a flat. I'm fixing that.

I don't use mulch and hate to weed, so all my beds are over planted. If I can see the ground it's time to plant.

Too early in the AM, or maybe I should go find my glasses.

Ha ha, pls8xx, I was truly confused!

Thanks for the feedback -- it does help clarify things.

As for the concrete, you can't really see it in the photos, but it is falling apart quite badly. Whoever put it in didn't rebar to the foundation, and the porch is drifting, and the driveway has completely disintegrated where it meets the street.

Also, we have to have a new sprinkler system, and if I was going to redo all this, I wanted to do it at the same time. Same for an underground dog fence.

Another reason for the update is that there is nothing on the south side of the house right now except 30-yr-old lava rock (you can't see that in the photo), and I'm still tearing out junipers that I hate in the courtyard and north side of the house. The stuff in the courtyard is overgrown, lots of snow-on-the-mountain (which I also hate) and some other plants that won't stop spreading. It's become too much trouble to keep cutting things back ... and there is major soil erosion in there, too. I need dirt.

The north side of the house needs a pathway, and it doesn't need grass and water bills in a drought.

And of course the house itself needs painting, so it makes sense to paint before the planting, so .... so much for stages.

The actual big change of landscape and hardscape will be in the backyard, so that will have to wait until we replenish our cash reserves, and until we're sure what we want: I think we want stone instead of concrete, and that needs much more research than a tweak of the front yard.

It appears to be far too shady for ornamental grasses, globe spruce, and roses along the front of that house.

I will ask. I will say that the photos were taken fairly early in the morning, before the sun makes it to due south, when it does hit part of the yard in the later morning and early afternoon. It doesn't really get the looker's right part of the yard, though; it does hit the courtyard.

And this is Colorado, where a couple of hours of sun is like full sun in most other places. In addition, those trees don't leaf until later in the year, so it's very very sunny into June almost. So that may be a consideration. But I'll definitely double check; thanks.

I've had globe spruce and can't imagine 3 under each window. They do get big, although slowly. Two would seem to do fine IMO. Mine after 13 years was 5 ft across and 5 ft at least wide. Last year i took her out and replaces with a new smaller baby. I love the blue.

Can I ask, how did you scan the plan in? I would like to scan mine but it's so big I can't do it.

I lightened the picture on my computer. Is the Alberta Spruce in the island bed with the lamp post thinning out a bit? That would be due to lack of light, if it is.

If you want evergreens along the foundation, use broadleafs because of the shade. If you are looking for color, consider some longer blooms. Perhaps there is a variety of hydrangea or two that could give you a lot of blue summer color and handle the shade.

If it is shady, even if the globe spruce grow OK, they won't exhibit such a nice color as they would out in the sun.

The problem with a plan like yours is that it dowsn't show what's on the other side of your property line that would influence your design. We are looking in rather than out. Both views should be considered for a successful plan.

Once the front yard is done, how will that affect getting materials to the backyard when you decide to do it? Will the front yard suffer damage? The logical way is to start at the back and work your way out.

You say you need stone and a lot of rock in the back. You sure don't want them driving or dumping rock on your new driveway!
I know this is a little late, but your designer should have told you.

spunky

I only know two ways to get the large plans scaned. Some stores that sell engineering / graphic supplies also do reproduction work. They have huge scanner/printers that can do the job. I once had a 36 by 48 subdivision plat scanned and burned on a CD in tif format.

The other way is to scan in pieces and then put them back together with graphic software. Even a flatbed scanner will have a small amount of warp so the result will not be perfect. If you don't have the software, I could do one for you.

Like laag, I too wanted a look back into the shaded areas of the photos. I'll share the edited photos for others ...

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laag, if you know of a broadleaf evergreen that is hardy to zone 5, and can handle a high pH, please share. A lot of people, including me, would be very interested.

Brent, it's not unusual for existing plants to be represented that way, so that you can better see the new plantings.

I believe that the plan was photographed, judging from the reflection on the left side.

I would spend a day noting which areas are in sun at what time. I've made a sketch of the yard, and gone out every hour or so and just noted the time on all of the sunny areas. Later you can go back and add them up to get the total hours of sun, and note whether is morning, afternoon, or midday sun.

thanks, i will try kinkos.

Yes, I photographed the plan.

And I know it works better to do the back first, but we really really really needed the new driveway. The concrete was completely gone for the first 5 feet of the driveway, and one more winter ... ugh.

We are taking out the grass on the side of the yard that they will use for going in and out of the back. It will take me a while to fully plan the back, anyway -- we'll just have to work around it.

I ended up changing LDs, because my first one disappeared from the firm. Don't know what happened. Whoops. So I talked to the new one, and she has some ideas to add more color to the south side of the house, spice up the front (and take away the globe spruce and roses, putting more interesting groupings than just 2 rows of matching plants).

We're also not planting some of the trees, especially the maple by the driveway. Botann is right -- I didn't put enough views on here, and there are trees in the neighbor's yard that are already near there, plus, I think a maple will just be too big. We'll try something smaller. And the hawthorn by the house is turning into a shrub of some sort.

I think I have a good handle on the sun and shade patterns -- and the new LD is very excited about working with shade plants. You don't get to do that too much here -- everything focuses on drought and sun tolerance.

It sounds like you are on the right track!