I think this is a house that will benefit from foundation plantings, but that's a plant selection question... the design question is, where will the path go?
Also, how will you edge this?

Also, if the sides of the staircase are wood, you risk damage to the wood if the soil goes higher at all, as it might if you use rocks to edge the bed.

So tell us a bit more about all that?

KarinL

PS, love the "dog"!

I like the No Dog XXXX sign too! I always pass by a sign like that when I go jogging during lunch! I probably should get one and place it near my mailbox.

I was planning on using liriope or mondo grass to edge the beds. Only the railings of the stairs are wood... the rest of it is brick and cinder block.

I got the tamukeyama in the ground today and it looks good, although not exactly where i wanted to place it. I think it is close enough.

Here is a picture of the dog sign. My neighbor has a Chocolate Lab that roams the street and poops in my yard so it was meant to be a hint to him. Didn't really work :(

{{gwi:51795}}

You need something that won't get over 3-4 feet high and will be evergreen, for year-round appeal. How about rhododendrons or evergreen azaleas?

I didn't even realize it was a NO sign, I just thought it was a witty bit of whimsy. Maybe a fence should be on your hardscape plans.

That is a good sized maple so I hope you gave it growing room. I agree with evergreen things mostly in addition to that, and I personally love rhododendrons with good foliage (I hate the blobby garden varieties sold at most garden centres for their flowers only - they have such a short period of interest). Do an image search for Rhododendron pachysanthum for an example of how good rhodo foliage can get. It takes quite a lot of sun, as many rhodos actually do. And they look spectacular with maple foliage.

The many varieties of dwarf conifer could round the selection out nicely. But again, you're not talking neighbourhood garden centre here - seek out specialty suppliers; it's worth it. It's a small space, and filling it up with just green lumpy things isn't really going to improve it much.

I think you should be after mostly a spreading habit or things you can keep pruned lower, especially if you're keeping the window boxes so they won't compete for space with those. If you can extend the beds around one or both sides of the house you could get into some taller things away from the doors and windows.

KarinL

I would suggest that the form of the maple does not funtion in a foundation planting without support of a complete base foundation planting. Finish the basic foundation planting first and then add to maple to it, in other words.

The foundation planting blends the biggest element of your landscape (house) with the rest of your landscape. That has a huge effect on the "big picture". Once you do that, you can add funk to your planting with interesting forms such as the maple. If you don't do that, the look of the house will be incomplete or out of sync and will take away from the look of the landscape.

Instead of thinking that specimens will be so powerful that it will take care of the composition, realize that a poor composition will over power the beauty of the plant. You'll neither have a good landscape or beautiful specimen.

Put the maple to the side, lay out a foundation planting that ties the architecture to the land, and then figure how you can add the tree into the composition to enhance the overall look.

If you can borrow a couple of feet from that driveway, it would allow you to plant slightly past the corner of the house. If you don't, you'll have a lot of visual bulk in front of the house. It is very difference in plant placement with a very large change in appearance of the way the house looks on the property.

The paint on the steps is also a powerful visual that is not working very well. Also, if you could get some kind of white grate to make the vents more subtle it would help.

I would suggest keeping the base foundation planting simple. Something upright and green on the corner, maybe two of the same shrub - one next to the landing, the other pushed forward between that and the corner plant, and a slightly smaller plant next to the step. I'd keep them as evergreens in this case. That will do the work of tying the house to the land. After that, you could add more plants with color, foliage color, different texture, and/or different form because the foundation base planting will have a strong unifying effect.

Keep the maple outside of the window.

You will want to add something in front of the corner plants because the visual weight of the steps with shrubs next to it will keep the middle bulky which would not be a good look on that narrow house. You'll need to bulk up the ends to make the front door the center of attention. That goes far in making a house welcoming.