An additional drawing that I did to give a better perspective.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:46666}}

You have a beautiful house. I think, in order to give you something you will like, we might need to know the following:

1) What kind of style do you like? You don't seem to like the hedges - so is your style more informal? Cottage style? Or modern? What sort of plants do you envision there? Flowers, different types of evergreens, or perhaps grasses? When you look at other people's landscapes, what says 'welcoming' to you?

2) Are you a 'gardener' or do you want super low maintenance?

3) What about on the other side of the steps? Is there a bed that needs to co-ordinate?

Sorry for all the questions. But I bet you'll get more responses the more we know what you're looking for. :)

One more:

4) Do you want to keep the flag pole? Does it carry special meaning to you? (perhaps you have a serviceperson in your family and you want to do all red-white-and blue garden). Just one more thing for us to think about.

I'm not able to offer specific plant suggestions, but looking at your photo I'd say the bed is out of balance. The evergreens are perhaps too large and dense a mass, overpowering the hostas and flowers, which also seem to be too uniform in size. While an evergreen background is desirable, maybe look for a plant with less weight and density in appearance, which will give you room for a bit more variety of sizes and shapes with the rest of it. Maybe the evergreens can be thinned out? Just my observations...

I think the evergreens overpower that space, so you are right to want to take them out and redo. I think hollegarden and catkim gave you great advice. My personal preference would be something a little more open and loose like a purple beautyberry with salvia, various-sized hosta, and other perennials. You could mix in some hellebores for evergreen interest. A variety of plant sizes and leaf shapes will make the bed look better. Have fun and experiment. You can always change it if it doesn't work! Musical plants as some call it!

Cynthia

Thank you for the responses. Holley, you have some great questions which I'll answer below. I totally agree that the evergreens overpower. I'm adding a new picture in this post so you can see the whole front of the house. The flower bed that I mentioned above, and the one to the left of the porch where all planted when we moved in. I've already taken up some of the bushes (hence the reason for the bare spot to the far left). The bushes that were already planted when we bought grow like crazy.

I planted the 5 small evergreen shrubs going across the porch. I like these because they really don't grow much and have been easy to keep up.

To answer the questions above:

1) I'm not sure what plants I'm wanting. I like color. I'd love to pull up all the bushes that were already planted and redo the bed with the flag pole and the one to the far left with some color and then keep the 5 small green shrubs as a balance in the middle. I like grasses as a border. Something that attracts butterflies or hummingbirds would be good too as we have a lot of both. I guess it goes back to the "overpowering" comments above. We have this fairly large flower bed, but it's totally bland because there's just some big green bushes.

2) I love being outside, so yea I guess I'm a gardener. My problem is just not knowing plants and being able to envision what beds will look like when everything comes together and especially what things will look like in a couple years when things start to grow.

3) Talked about this one.

4) I would like to keep the flag pole. My best friend is currently in Afghanistan, so I'd like to keep it up.

Thanks again for the comments thus far!!!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:46667}}