I prob won't be much help because I hate your neighbors look. It's like a row of stuff that is currently small, but I can see are varieties that will become enormous (arborvitae, mugo pine, grasses) crammed inside another thin line created by the fake rock. Gack. Looks like gramma shopped at Home Depot. A couple of thoughts. First - I admire the fact that you already realize that your neighbor doesn't have the winter months working for her with her plant selections. Good for you - your instincts are correct. Darker colors make an item look smaller - they recede. Lighter colors make an item look larger. The lighter your house color, the larger it will look. It's hard to tell how far back your house sits from the road, so an opposing perspective might be that you could make your house look like its farther away by painting it a darker color. Remember the light grey roof - whatever color you decide to paint the house - the roof is part of the total look so you need to take it into account. Taking lots of pictures is a great way to see what you can't see by standing there in person. If you take digital photos, you can blow them up to 8 x 10 and print them in black and white off your computer and sketch the landscape right onto that. Don't cover up the windows and front door with improper selection of oversized shrubs and trees that won't fit the size of the house in 15 years. This is not inviting - make sure your front door can be seen. Make sure that shrubs are placed at least 3 feet from the house. This defies everything you've seen in new landscaping where small shrubs are planted 12 inches from the foundation but you will be glad in the long run that you can walk behind your shrub border to do plant maintenance,home maintenance, clean windows, make sure burglars don't have a hiding place. And the roots won't grow into the foundation causing you to have to re-waterproof your foundation in years to come. Planted out 3 ft, your shrubs will almost be touching the wall in a few years. Planted closer - you will be running the hedge trimmer back there to get them off the house. I had to go all over my house last year and remove all the branches of everything that touched the house because carpenter ants had started crawling up under the siding. Create curved beds that can have walkways to the house, or through the bed around the house to the side or back yard. You could begin an evergreen shrub border anywhere from the end of the drive to partway up the drive, and S curve it across the lawn at a diagonal around the corner of the house. Make long sweeps, not short changes - it will make the property flow more. Do you have kids to think about play areas? Is there enough room in the back yard for their play areas? Do you need to keep the front lawn for a future badmitton or volleyball net? How much time do you really want to devote to garden maintenance? If you are inexperienced - you honestly do not know the answer to that question and I would suggest that you start small and see if this is something that you would enjoy spending free time doing. If you don't have time or prefer another hobby, its not going to be fun to have a bunch of deadheading, weeding, mulching etc to cope with to keep the front of your new home really nice looking. By the way the term perennials implies that they are less work because they come back every year. This is totally untrue and I'd say my perennials take maybe twice as much time as annuals with spring and fall clean up, deadheading, fertilizing, mulching, composting, pinching, weeding and the occasional need to divide them. I don't know where in zone 5 you are, but there are gorgeous evergreen azaleas, rhododendrons, pieris, boxwood, chamaecyparis, junipers, microbiota, cotoneaster, spruces, fothergilla, itea, witchhazel(15ft) and hollies just to name a few things that remain in the 2-5 ft range which would require minimal shaping from you and give you fantastic color. There is a new dwarf 10-12 ft white birch that would give you multiseason interest set off the corner of the house. If sited so it grows to its proper size, Taxus baccata repandens will begin to weep and is a very pretty shrub. There are lots and lots of plants to choose, but most designers will tell you to first design the shape of the beds and any hardscape like sidewalks, stepping stones, water, lighting. Then you sketch the shape and size of the plants you want. The effect I want is for someone to stand back and see a seamless home and landscape, where the landscape uplights the home. Think about layers also. I think sometimes white fences look really nice in front of white homes - also native stone and dark green ground covers. The final step is picking the plants that fit the criteria you've already established. If you are going to change the color of the house you might decide on that first because you wouldn't want to put together a foliage or flower color selection that didn't complement the house. Karin mentioned doing research - and I'd take that to the library and page through landscaping books and books of great gardens to look for ideas that appeal to you. You may end up having an all white garden like the Sackville-West famous garden at Sissinghurst Castle - most photographed garden in Europe. A great catalog to get on the mailing list or website just to look at the pictures is White Flower Farms. They always have awesome annual container combinations. Good luck and keep posting photos as you go along.

I must give credit where credit is do. I learned everything I know about Organic Lawn Care from all the knowledge people on this site. I started at the Organic Lawn Care FAQ and read it several time. I still use it for reference. I read a lot of past post, asked a lot of question, learned from my mistakes and made some modifications. I also take full advantage of my Local Extension office and their website. Theres not much on organics but you can get a ton of info about your turf species. I understand with the organic approach that there is no "quick fix" and I am ok with that. My lawn has some weeds in it and I either pull them by hand or leave them be. I have a few small areas in my back yard that were eaten/partial eaten by Sod Web. Nothing a little compost cant fix. I also had gray leaf spot in a few areas, I let it be, the problem went away. If you notice a problem area and it isn't effected badly, Monitor it, Make sure its not spreading and it might take care of itself. If you notice the areas spreading or getting worse its time to take action, come here and ask questions. I still feel the most Important approach to Organic Lawn Care is: 1. Mulch Mow at the highest recommended height for your grass type. 2. Always use a sharp balanced blade. 3. Mow often. 4. Water deeply 3/4-1" and infrequently, or when 30-50% of your grass shows signs of stress/wilting. (Example: Once or Twice a week in summer, and whenever the lawn needs it in winter.) 5. Only water in the early morning hours. After 2am.

I used TB with Iron and Triple Phosphate based of the soil sample results and recommendations. I will probably hit it again with TB and then Winterizer at the end of November. Sounds like a good plan! For the second shot, just try to split the difference between the first and last application. Scotts likes them to be atleast 6 weeks apart, you may not have that much time. I've got some thin areas that hopefully will fill in a little better. I don't know alot about TTTF, but I think you will be fine. You are doing everything you can with the fertilizer, just keep watering as long as temps allow.

A bit of an update on my kitchen. We got behind because of figuring out the countertop on the island. As we taped it out we realized it was too cramped. So now the island seats 2 and possible a 3rd on the end. So now my island is just straight across, no "bubble" on the end for seating. I actually like that it is a "cleaner" look. So my floors are finally refinished. The finished island should be delivered tomorrow. And my London Grey Ceasarstone is installed on Friday!!! Whoohoo. Monday, upper cabinets finish going in (several sit on the counters so we had to wait for countertops) Hopefully even next week will bring some appliances. My tile won't be ordered until Monday. It is so $$ that I decided to wait for the cabinets to be in & countertops to KNOW how much I want and where. The "swirly" tile shown above in my original post is called Danse Lucido and it is $110/piece! They are 14x14 pieces. I'm wanting to do an accent behind my cooktop (which is 36"). The pieces "interlock" so however many I select then it will need to be squared off. Obviously I don't want much "waste". This is a big splurge! Right now my designer and I are thinking of doing 6 pieces. 2 across and 3 up so it will be 28x42 before being square off. Also want it flush with the bottom of cooktop instead of a "window". Here is a photo I have a mantle style hood similar to the photo. The sides slide out for spices. I was going to do the other tile to surround it as shown in the photo. That tile (Little Satch Be Bop White) will go on the remainder of the backsplash which is just that one corner around from the cooktop. I don't have much backsplash at all. But since my cooktop is 36 wide is the slightly less than 28 wide going to look right??? Love some feedback!!