While I completely understand the urge to plant, plant, plant, take care of the 'big picture' projects first, your steps and walkway, any walls. For one, you can depend on plants getting tortured during even the most minor construction project. Secondly, those items, after installation, will help you shape the rest of the garden.

Now, please stand back from the house, and nobody will get hurt! You are falling victim to the common trap of making micro-decisions, i.e. "the space between the bay window and the small window on the left" or "the right side flower bed". Try to look at the whole house and garden as a single composition, rather than this little bit here and that little bit there. I think the pros call this moving from the general to the specific. The details come after you've outlined the whole.

What do I mean? Take the space between the bay window and the small window on the left. You make the assumption that the solution is close to the house, literally a vine on the wall. It is quite possible that an element in the foreground, out away from the house, part of a larger combination of plants, could balance that perceived void even better.

Just trying to give you some food for thought.

Good points made above......completing the hardscaping should always be the first phase of a landscape plan :-)

I'd also agree that you are not yet at the 'minor detail' stage, but much more at the 'big picture' stage. I do realize your garden is still very new and the plantings still very small but it seems to be lacking in any structure - larger growing trees and shrubs, including evergreens - that will provide scale and year round presence.

If you can, step outside the yard - across the street perhaps - and take a critical look at what you see. Then imagine what it might look like in winter. Sometimes taking photos from that perspective are helpful for visualization. Enlarge them and then use tracing paper to sketch in how you would like the mature garden to look. Once you know where you'd like the placement of the 'bones' - the larger, permanent, year-round structure of trees and shrubs - it becomes much easier to place the details of perennials, smaller shrubs and vines.

It does make perfect sense what you've said gardengal. Normally I wouldn't do it in this order but my husband threatened to dump my periennals if I made him dig them in a hole again come winter.

Somebody on the HOME : home decorating suggested I post my issues here too. the other post on that forum has more responses and more pictures that I've posted. It shows much more detail and explanation as to why things have been done the way they have been. We live on 20 acres out in a wide open field with very little trees except the ones we've planted. The roads are all gravel and we have 1 neighbor to the south of us. We have no worries of winter interest cause I live in zone 3, winter from nov-may! the snow piles up 4 feet infront of my house...you wouldn't be able to see a thing once the snow is here. You get used to looking at bare trees and a flat, white surface!

I would like nothing more to finish the retaining wall and the right side fill, grading, grass and tree planting...but can't cause it won't stop raining (6 days straight!) enough already I say.

Okay, I'll grant you that with 20 acres it's more challenging to provide winter interest. I live in zone 3 as well, and here are some of the things we've done to help with that:

* We have evergreen trees and shrubs intermixed with deciduous, so that it's not just brown and gray out there.

* Planted a crab apple with tiny persistent fruit, for the effect of berries in winter.

* Sought out shrubs that produce berries, or that have interesting branching patterns.

* Built round raised planting areas of stone; they're visible as a feature until we get over 3' of snow.

* Grow clematis on a black metal garden arch; it's a focal point all year.

* Use containers that can be left outside year-round. They're raised up from the ground on brick pedestals, so they're above the snow most of the time.

Just wanted to give you a few ideas... makes it easier to look out the window at your garden when it's -30F!

Thanks Deeje! Your ideas are great. Would you happen to have photos of some of the things you mentioned. We are not doing any landscaping this year in the backyard. I did plant (32) 9 ft maples and willows throughout the backyard so one day we will evenutally have some shade, windbreak, privacy, etc.

For the last 7 days and many more before that it has been raining non stop. Very frustrating when I want to get out there and get working. I realized after I posted and received some feedback that I really need to work on the path and retaining wall before I can ask for help. The front area still needs lots of fill brought in, especially to the right. With the rain, my husband can't use the tractor cause he either sinks or makes a mess with his tires.

I think I have determined that we need to plant a few colorado blue spruce in the yard for year round interest. The only thing with those is they always kill the grass underneath so I was never fond of using them. Guess I'll just have to live with it.

It won't be long before I am sitting on the couch watching the wind and snow whip through our yard (sigh).

I know, can you believe the rain up here?! It looks way too green outside for it to be August -- not that I'm complaining about greenery!

We have blue spruce and some other conifers lining the back edge of our property. When I started putting in the garden beds, I looked forward to the day that the needle/cone drop would smother all of the grass... and it did! Free mulch!

Here's one of the raised planters, which was one of the first things I did as we began landscaping. At the right is a tall metal doohickey I added strictly for some winter color and height (the blue top catches the sun, which is nice).

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Here's the garden arch with planters in front of it. I added several of these brick pillars in strategic areas of the garden to raise blooms up above bunny reach, and I keep the containers out all winter.

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Forgot to mention yesterday -- those are Holmstrup Arborvitae in the center of the second photo. They're a nice size -- just a little over six feet tall -- and, unlike the taller arbs, haven't started splitting in the center or looking gangly. I've been really pleased with how they've done for me.

deeje -- gorgeous work!

Hello, pmartin, I'm not a landscaper, but it seems like your plantings have plenty of room to be set farther away from the house. And when your plants grow to a mature size, I have a feeling your lower windows will be blocked. If your planting beds curved and bulged farther out even all the way out to the edge of the black dirt, your plants won't eventually be jammed up against the house. I think that's called the 'mustache' look. If your beds were deeper, you could have various sizes and heights, and it would be more interesting than right up against your house. Also, I think it would make your house blend more with the land if the shrubs, etc extended farther out. I'm sure you intend to plant trees. They will give you a totally different look. It looks like you have a lot of room. I would use more of it.

In the space to the left of the bay windows how about one of those pretty fir trees. I see some in the photos above. Being from Florida I don't know what they're called. I like the bluish color, the fact that they're evergreen and wide at the bottom which makes them very substantial looking. But again you'd have to bring it out from the house to give it room.

Your front walk could widen out at the circular drive curved on each side around your planting beds. That would be very welcoming and grander than a narrow approach.

If you look at other homes in the neighborhood that have mature landscapes - maybe 10 years old, see what their shrubs and trees look like size-wise and plan accordingly. I would definitely use a lot of evergreens. I'm sure they'll make your winters much more cheerful. I love GREENery in winter! I do think it's too soon to be planting smaller plants - except for the fact that it feels like you're getting something done. Getting started isn't easy, but your home looks wonderful, and eventually your yard will catch up. Try to think big and picture what things will look like after they've grown up and out with the goal that in just a few years your house will look like it's been there forever. :))

All the best to you.

Sherry

Deeje....Love, Love, Love your yard! when I lived in the city it was so easy to do the landscaping cause there are boundaries. Here I am creating my own and am finding it extremely difficult. Mostly because there aren't the grown trees or fence line. I was surprised to read that you leave your decorative things out. Do you get as much snow as us in MB? I put EVERYTHING away in the garden shed as soon as it gets cold...including fountains, urns, trellis, ornaments, stone statues...I mean EVERYTHING. I'm been doing this for years! Is it okay to leave these things out?

Sherry, thank you for the suggestions. The beds aren't as shallow as they look but I am seriously considering making them larger. I am so used to having a restricted space that I didn't take a bigger one into consideration until it was mentioned here numerous times. If you look under the home forum, house decorating I posted photos there too. I think its been bumped to page 2 or 3 already with no more responses. We are definetely planting more trees on "the boluvard" (that's what I'm going to call that piece that sticks out on the right). Until my husband can haul in the rest of the fill to raise it up more, we can't get near it. i would like to plant some of the burgandy trees there and am thinking maybe of incorporating some Colorado blue spruce too. I am thinking of staggering colorado blue on the left side beyond the house to create a boundary. I wasn't fond of using spruce, but it might make for some nice scenery in the winter as you mentioned. Right now, we can see for miles in the summer and in winter, all we feel and see is cold and white!

I took the advice of many and went out and bought 1 of the cedars that deeje has in her garden. What would you think of this cedar in the front bed left of the bay window? Should it be centered in the middle or to one side? Would 1 be okay? I set it there for tonight and unwrapped it hoping it spreads its branches a little more. I am hesitant about ripping out the plantings I already placed there without knowing if this will be a for sure home for the cedar. If it looks okay I was going to go get a few more and place them on the right hand side corner and move the burgundy one forward in that bed.

I am overly excited about the prices I paid for my trees and shrubs today after husband spotted the deal and came rushing home so I could go out and shop ... Cedar reg. 74.99, sale $12.99. 3 mugo pines reg 31.99, sale 5.99. Bought 2 more Japanese Barberry regular 39.99 sale 5.99 and last but not least I got 2 6 ft apple trees for $19.99, reg 79.99. My husband is encouraging me to go back and get a few more things including a weeping caragana, 9.99 from 71.99. Checked the root balls and everything is "A" okay.

I also saw some global cedars. After seeing how big and round they get I would really like those. Not in the front though...too big. I love the roundness of them! I will probably use them in the backyard. Their so small when you buy them. It is hard to beleive that they grow up that big.

Let me know what you think about the cedar. I will try and post picture of it sitting there in the morning.