LOL, "wonderful" is not how I'd describe it, although I will say that the neighbors like it. But then in a landscape of lawns and tightly clipped unhappy yews, anything else looks exotic and fascinating. I mostly garden in front because major traffic behind my house makes it as loud as the Indy 500. The front is only as loud as an average highway, so that's some improvement! ;) In front I have large beds on either side of the lawn where I grow only things that can survive in the vicinity of Norway maples. Everyone on my street has one, they are street trees that you can't cut down. Horrible things. My neighborhood of small cottagy houses was built in the 1930s and the houses are very close together so nothing I could do would ever hide the streetscape--cars, clipped yews, asphalt, concrete, driveways, the neighbors' kids toys, etc. And my neighbor is the town junkman, so his whole yard is basically a junkheap complete with 2 dead cars. But he's a nice guy, we'd never do anything to hurt him. Anyway, despite these constraints, I have after 10 years got lush summer and fall garden of tough-as-nails plants and containers, and I am happy to have a full-sun southside bed where I can grow tomatoes. To give the tiny front yard some structure, I made a semicircle of brick edging that sweeps across the yard in a big slightly assymmetrical arc, to push the eye toward my more attractive southside garden beds and built a little assymmetric brick path to those beds. When money allows I will put up a picket fence, first on the sides and then maybe across the front. My garden would win no design awards, partly because my plantings are constrained by the Norway maple and partly because it's in an unattractive setting. This is my beef with garden mags and books, they always depict gardens at houses whose yards and surroundings would look nice even if no gardening was done. And I sure do envy your wide open sunny spaces, and the more attractive, non-urban cityscape that you have! What I long for is privacy and quiet, the two things you can't get in an urban setting like this. But I do have a nice little front porch that I fill up with plants and wicker chairs in the summer, and I have tomatoes right at the doorstep, and I have bees and flowers so hey, it's OK.

I have to agree that, while they are very well done, the railings attached to the round posts look out of place. Then again, I can understand not wanting to remove them; it was probably a lot of work to put them up, not to mention expensive. I can also understand why you wanted them in the first place to stop traffic, though once everyone gets used to the door on the corner, alot of that cutting across will stop. If you can, I'd seriously consider removing them. If removing them is OOTQ, what about making them shorter, say, no taller than the bottom edge of the front windows? That way, they'd look less like the house was surrounded in baby gates. The porch is low enough you shouldn't have any trouble with building codes. In some areas, if you replace rather than repair the original railings, you have to make them taller, something like 36 or 38 inches. It's supposed to be a safety feature, I suppose to keep passing drunks and reckless children from toppling off the porch, but it usually makes it look like the house has been put in a cage. If you do keep the front porch railings, I'd definately add a top rail to the outside of the rails on the screen porch to cover the angled tops as someone else suggested; the way it is now, the screen porch has a modular, modern look that just doesn't feel right. Someone else also suggested adding rounded posts to the corners of the screen porch, to help visually tie the two together from the road, but then again, that might not be doable on a budget; I know those rounded posts are expensive. (that might be why the person who originally added them to the portico/porch used three instead of four...) Also, what about adding a trim to enclose the top (ceiling) edge of the screen porch to make it match the front porch, and cover the exposed beams? You'd loose some of the light inside, and possibly some breeze, but not too much, and I think it would help balance it out, and make a better match with the front of the house. I realize the screen porch is in the side yard, but from the street it's visible enough that you should think of it as being an extension of the front. Are you going to put in a window around the corner from the new front door? It seems like that's a big blank wall, and it's a shame to completly loose that side view of the garden once you step inside until you make it back outside to the screen porch. Maybe one of those decorative stained glass windows; not in color, but in different patterns/textures of transparent and translucent glass would be nice. I know, that's "house" stuff, not landscaping, but what caught my eye about your place was the way you'd moved the off center front door over to the corner. I have an off center front door myself; it's too close to a main interior wall to add sidelights to try to balance it with the windows, so I'm always interested in seeing how other people work around one. I'd still love to see how you worked out the new floorplan. :^)

I don't know for sure if that particular type of willow would get caterpillars, but if it's a type of Salix, it undoubtedly COULD be used by red-spotted purples, viceroys and mourning cloaks. There are some willows that are much more attractive to butterflies than others. I had some Carolina willows/S. caroliniana, but they weren't nearly as popular as the regular black willows/S. nigra - they only got a few eggs/caterpillars. Woodlander's carries a bush variety of S. nigra that I ordered earlier this year. I'm growing it in a pot now, and may continue to grow it there, never plant it out. I can't attest to it's continuing small size, since I just got it, though - time will tell. Unfortunately, Woodlander's ordering season just ended, but in case the variety you mentioned doesn't work out, here's a link. Sherry Here is a link that might be useful: Salix nigra 'Webb'

well - its not that you can't. Its what may occur later on. You may have seen a number of ficus plants being braided like this and that's actually in the nature of ficus which are in the wild, considered parasite trees (they grow up trees and eventually strangle them). its fine for those tropical plants. With dappled willows though it could be a different story. You would notice in tree shaping how branches growing too close to another are separated and sometimes one will be cut out. This is because those tiny gaps in between is an area vulnerable to insects, ice, disease. I'm not too sure about the strangling it to death part of it. Just beneath the outer bark layer, the is the layer that's responsible for carrying up nutrients - basically plant veins. So if that gets strangled then some of the branches can be affected by that process. -- that is if those bark areas are compromised.