a close up of the walkway

another picture of the walkway

Here is another view

For starters, if it was to look professionally done, you would need to relocate the walk farther away from the house. A professional would not make that error when there is an acre of open lawn on the other side of the walk. There is insufficient room for a proper planting between the walk and the house. Since it is bordered by so called "landscape timbers" (which will not last long in contact with the ground) an opportunity to redo the walk will present itself in the not too distant future.

Since the front door seems somewhat secluded, some device, such as an arbor, could be employed to signify "arriving" and help lead to the door proper.

The large tree looks scruffy relative to its "front and center" position. (It looks like there are two large trees, but how they are situated in respect to each other and to the house is not clear in the photos.) It/they needs to be made to look much more regal ... cleaned up and refined ... turned into a piece of art. Somewhat hidden within the trunk(s) structure is a stunning form that needs to be revealed. As well, the space around the tree should look like it respects and thinks highly of the tree. The plantings could be extended out from the house for a better sense of proportion and scale, instead of the lawn occupying nearly all of the front yard space.

Need to upgrade the plant maintenance overall. Many plants look scruffy and poorly defined. What are the 3 very large (12' height) shrubs seen in the first picture? (One is in front of the car, one is dark green at the far right, and one is light green to the left of that.)

Pretty house and property! I think that big tree is gorgeous just as it is- it looks like a centerpiece for the whole yard.
I'm not a professional but think the row of shrubs should reach higher up on the yellow wall, towards the windows, maybe within a foot of them. Not sure about the other side of the door tho. Min

Since you have very limited space for your foundation plants If the shrubs in front of the house were all uniform with the taller matching pyramidal shrubs on the corners and at the front door stoop it would look better. More of a formal look instead of shaggy unmatching bushes.

()oooo() Door ()oooo()

Take a picture of your house and a sharpie and draw in some bushes and see if you like it better. The tree is beautiful but not in the best place. If you removed some of the lower limbs it would let you see past it to the house/front door.

Moving the front walk out would be best because you could plant some larger growing shrubs to grow up closer to the tiny little windows and adding to the foundation bed by planting on the outside of the bed at the entrance of the walkway to extend your landscaping into the yard some. Do a web search for 'landscaping around a walkway' and click on images to get some ideas.

It would be good to establish a distinct, level, bottom to the canopy of the trees so that they look tidy and tree-like, instead of like overgrown shrubs. Below the line that establishes the canopy bottom, create a symmetrical, balanced trunk system, removing any trunks or limbs that splay outside of the overall established shape. It should be uniform in the round, not just from one view.

What is the thing I've surrounded with the pink box that looks like a raised mound of earth?

This repeated advice to every situation to limb up and shape trees as a necessity to have a professional looking landscape strikes me as beside the point. If you like that regimented look, fine. But don't conclude that pulling the walk out, limbing up that tree, and adding a generic smaller lollypop tree is THE best/professional solution. A truly professional approach would attempt to get your input on how you use the space, address functional problems and potentials, ask about your budget, how/who will implement, and suss out your style preferences in coming up with a design. There is no ONE design approach offered as the professional approach that can address your garden without asking more questions before offering solutions. To see the same formulaic advice offered up for each OP's home as the solution for adding curb appeal, strikes me as not even beginning to address what landscape design really is about.

Bahia, if you'd look at the title you'd see that the OP is giving their input. They're looking for curb appeal. You told them that they need find someone else to help them, but you haven't offered a wit of actual landscape advice to them. If you don't like my formula of good basic landscape solutions, then offer some of your own and let's see what you got. Claiming you have something better, but we can't see it seems not only counterproductive for the thread, but suspicious in your motivations.

Hard to evaluate "curb appeal" when you can't see the curb.

Assuming that the first pic is taken from the street -- to me, the lawn is pretty overwhelming. If it were me, I'd break up the boring lawn with some pretty planting beds and shapes closer to the street, with maybe a small flowering tree, for visual interest.

Agree that the shrubs close to the house need work. I don't know what your needs are in terms of the basement windows; whether you need more light or more privacy there, so that's a consideration as well. As for the tree -- I hope you consult a good arborist.

Ok I will try to answer the questions about the plants...
-The pink box is actually a rock wall. So the slope of our front lawn is around 15-20% and there is a curved rock wall there and above it, the lawn is flat. I am not sure who put that like that 20 years ago, but it looks a little stupid to me.
- The dark green thing on the right is a yew.
- the light green tall ones on the right are a line of Leyland cypress trees in my backyard that you can just see the tops of (those are staying because we have a privacy issue).
-the tree that you see on the left that is kinda in front of the car is a crepe myrtle, and this is the only thing I planted in this messy front lawn.

The front walkway is on my mind because a few of the timbers actually are rotten and squishy. I have been thinking about hiring someone to put in a walkway that will last. What do you all think of poured concrete? Then between this walkway and the house, I just have no idea what to put there.

I am going to attach another pic so you can see the view of the dogwood and Japanese maple, as well as the stupid rock wall.

I was thinking about this as I was driving to work this morning. I think you could use the design principles of repetition and massing; in other words, instead of scattered, different plants, use several (or many) of the same kind--in a row, or in a mass. It would give a more formal, uniform look, which I think would fit your house well. You could use the same principle in a planting bed in the front near the curb, which would break up the mass of lawn.

You certainly have room to re-do the walkway to be wider and prettier, too. I also like Yardvaark's idea of marking the entrance to the pathway with a structure or other signifier.

disclaimer: I'm a complete landscape noob and not a pro, so get that grain of salt out.

This post was edited by Violet.West on Wed, Oct 2, 13 at 14:20

Also not a pro but I believe at the very least you should remove the lowest branch from the tree. It looks like a hazard.

Nothing against rock walls, but the one in the picture seems to ignore the Jap Maple, which is a prominent feature.

A new walk might use the Jap Maple as the center point of it's circumference while it is trying to get farther away from the house.

This post was edited by Yardvaark on Thu, Oct 3, 13 at 2:04

First off, that is one impressive house and lawn. I wish mine were that spacious, lol. Anyway, IâÂÂve had more or less the same problem before. I wanted to redo my lawn because I felt that the walkway does not compliment the aesthetic view from the curb.

What I did was I had a large tree from the backyard transferred out front and a bit closer to the curb and re-arranged my walkway so that it sort of wraps around the tree. The effect was anyone going into the house via the walkway would pass underneath the tree, which is quite surreal especially at night. From the curb, it was really something to look at and it gives the feel of an old house. Forgive the romanticism, but I just love old houses lol. And if youâÂÂre wondering how I transferred an entire tree, I hired an arborist from JimâÂÂs Trees since I did not have the tools or the know how. I'm sure there are arborists near you, and while youâÂÂre at it you could have your tree trimmed as suggested above just to remove those branches that look like they could be hazards. Just my 2 cents. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Jimâs Trees

I did lots of thinking on this and came up with this non-constructive thought.

If you were to want to sell you home, you would probably ask some real estate agents for proposals (price, their way of marketing, commission, etc.). Once you determined which one you want to represent you and home, the agent will take some pictures as part of the marketing (mostly online anymore). The agent is looking out for you, but also seeking the sale. If the agent believes that something is not right with the photo taken, then you would have a tendency to listen. A real estate agent is not an artist, nor a landscape person, but a good one will have seen lots of homes and knows what works and what doesn't.

Stand at the curb. Take a picture, walk to the left and right several paces and take more pictures. Walk up the drive a bit and take pictures, not just of the house, but the view from the house. What would you want to do if you were thinking about buying your home?

Now for some other comments:
You have many horizontal lines on the actual house. The windows and doors are rectangle. All of that is very typical. Your yard counters that look a bit, but it also moves the eye in an awkward manner. You need to negate that. In your first photo, it appears that the house is leaning because of all that.

I concur on getting rid of all that grows between the current walkway and the house. I concur that you ought to not have a straight line walk to replace it.

My suggestion to balance the overall look would be to create a small berm on the left side, about 20' out from the house. Nothing large, but something that would break up that falling away appearance. In the first photo, there is lots of shade coming from the left side, I'll assume that there are some tall trees there. I'm a big promoter of color in the front yard; something that complements the colors of the house.

Some might think it trite, but a burning bush on the berm would look good as the leaves are changing color this time of year. Those can be pruned to shape or let it go. I would also include blooming perennials that show different colors throughout the year. Poppies might work, as might some Veronica. There are many, many options for that kind of thing.

Jim

Perhaps I take the lazy man's way approach, but I would contact nurseries who do both hardscape & landscape in your area. I would have them come out & do a professional estimate (assuming it's free or nearly free) and then take the ideas I like and DIY them with supplies bought at the company who drew the sketch. I bet a landscape architect would have a bunch of ideas that never occurred to you (at least that's the way it worked with me). I'm with the person who said to take advantage of your big front yard for the new sidewalk. Good Luck! Jan

Thanks for all of your replies. The first thing have decided is to have the walkway redone a little wider and farther away from the house. I want it done in a soft curvy pathway but I am undecided about using pavers or stained concrete. Then I think I will add a bed on the other side of the walkway as well. Google searches for ideas have given me a lot of great examples, but walking around my neighborhood for ideas had been even more helpful. All the houses here have the same footprint and most people here actually have no walkway and leave it grassed. The few houses that have walkways look great. The landscaping is going to be the tough one for me though because the area is full shade and plants have had a hard time there. I saw a house in my neighborhood I could copy off of. We both have North facing full shade fronts and they had a selection of yews, Andromeda, and heavenly bamboo. Their smaller plants were hosta and potted mums for bursts of color. It looked very nice. But I won't do hosta because the deer would practically live on my front lawn. The only problem was I think I need taller plants to break up the yellow wall of the house. I think I will try some fun with photoshop and put some plants in the picture and see how they work. I will post pictures as this projects progresses. Again thanks for your tips.
Oh and my husband just loves the look of the big Japanese maple as-is, so he is begging me not to limb it up, so I think it might stay looking as it currently does.

Be careful about the curves. Front walks are usually 'utility' paths in that they exist to get people from point A to point B. If they wander around too much, people start taking short cuts.

What do you think I could change to make it look professionally done

Redesign and reconstruction of the pathway will make a huge impact.

Give yourself an ample landing at the front door and then gently sweep a wide arcing path that is about 5 feet wide down to your driveway.

If you can incorporate brick into the surface material in the path , either as the riser or the tread, you will tie the brick wainscotting that is on the house to the path .

I would take advantage of the tree and incorporate it into a border with underplantings, thus making it a separate bed from the lawn. A simple underplanting of native ferns and variegated solomen's seal would be elegant.

We reworked a front yard similar to yours several years ago. Attached is a photo showing the new gentle wide arc pathway with a brick riser and the existing large tree segregated in a bed separate from the lawn.

I'm by no means an expert, but I think your first goal in redoing the walk as a swooping curve, farther out from the house will allow for a much more appealing landscape.

Unless you like the formal look of rows of plants, an alternative that would also present a more polished look would be staggered groupings, I like to work with 3s or 5s. Repetition will help create a more planned look than having one of this, one of that... Some other shade shrub suggestions would be rainbow drooping fetterbush (Leucothoe), mountain laurel, and some types of hydrangeas. When it comes to perennial shade plants you always hear ferns and hostas, but there are many more beautiful options out there! I love tiarella foamflowers, toad lillys offer fall blooms, hellebores lenten rose will bloom late winter, and bleeding hearts provide spring color. My favorite bleeding hearts are fernleaf varieties because they bloom forever, although they seem to need a bit more sun than the traditional variety. Brunnera, japanese forest grass and astilbe are also shade tolerant. Even with a shade garden you can still create a beautiful year round entrance to your home!

Good luck!