Karin, it's interesting and enlightening to read what others think of our house and landscape, even if we may not agree or take up some suggestions. We live in an area where we don't have a large number of options for landscape/garden design, unfortunately! So no worries about me being offended by criticism/suggestions, etc. We appreciate the help and we will work to think about each decision in terms of its purpose. We originally had purposes in mind for each bed in our backyard, though it may not look like it now - with the exception of the hydrangeas along the back fence. They were originally planted behind our garage (where the pool equipment enclosure is now). When we put in the pool, we moved them to the side bed (which didn't exist before the pool) along the fence, but the neighbor's black walnut tree hampered their growth. So rather than throw them away, we made a new bed along the back, sort of a temporary spot until we figure out what to do with the rest of the beds. I won't bore you or anyone else by enumerating the purposes of the other beds in the back, but just want to add that we also did have more visual interest and contrast in flower, foliage, and form - but many of those plants didn't survive. We've been in a sort of holding pattern back there for a couple years - and I'm looking forward to improving that landscape. But back to the front yard/landscape. One of our goals for changes remains to revise the long bed along the drive for the dual purposes of easier maintenance and including more variety in its plants to provide more interest in months other than July. Another goal is to revise the small bed near the side steps to make it better looking (instead of a hodgepodge of plants, as it is now) and as a memorial garden for our daughter, with beautiful plantings. We also still want to improve the visual impact/visibility of the front door. To me, that is a separate goal from emphasizing the front entrance, if by entrance one means the wide front steps (which aren't truly the entrance to the house, but visually they do give that impression). We understand the goals of Laag's ideas about beds in front of the steps and a wide path from the driveway to the steps/porch. But in terms of practicality, we don't want people to stop midway up our driveway and walk up the path, because then they block the entire driveway. Also, the steps are covered with snow for the entire winter (it's too expensive to pay to have them cleared each time it snows), and a walkway would also be covered in snow, so the practical function of a walkway beginning partway up the driveway wouldn't apply during those months. I've been bothered for a while by the sense of imbalance between the long driveway bed and the expanse of grass on the other side of the drive, so another purpose of making changes is to see if we can balance that. Laag's suggestion about a grassed area in the long bed was so helpful - I just don't know whether that is enough to achieve balance, or if we will need a bed under the birches. A new purpose resulted from a number of comments here, and that is to soften the impact of the veranda wall. I think we are just so used to how our house looks that we don't see it for how it really appears. You all have opened our eyes to this issue! I haven't been in the back yards of the houses above us (in the back) to see what they can see of our back yard. It "feels" private in our back yard most of the time, probably due to the fence, but I still don't do any skinny-dipping. ;-) The front feels very public to me (it's a busy street and in the spring/summer/fall, a very busy golf course), with the exception of the veranda. On the rare occasions when we are seated there (it's usually too hot/buggy/raining/cold), we have at least the illusion of privacy behind that fortress wall - though with close neighbors, we have to watch how loudly we talk. My sister mused aloud a few years ago about the idea of putting a hedge across the front of the yard (on the lawn on the house side of the sidewalk, if you're facing away from the house) to screen the street and provide more of a sense of privacy. A neighbor a couple of houses down has a partial bridal wreath hedge in the yard and she was noting that at the time. I'll update as we get further along in this process; meanwhile, if anyone has more comments/suggestions, we're very happy to have them.

There are plenty of ways to handle this sort of boring and uniform neighborhood generic landscape without destroying the overall caharacter or openness of the landscape. Scaling down the lawn area via adding more planting area can be accomplished sensitively if done with an eye to working with the long predominantly horizontal lines of the house, using plantings in mass and in varied height layers, using plantings as architectural masses with contrasting forms/textures/colors, etc. Unfortunately you'll tend to find that most homeowners in such tracts aren't going to want to spend the kind of money it may take to make an attractive change. Simple things like adding saw cut patterns and concrete stains to break up huge driveways, or removing bands of concrete and replacing with planted turf-block or decorative brick/stone/tile pavers is one way to play down expansive driveways. Front yards can be made more interesting by creating semi-enclosed entry courtyards at the entry with enlarged paving/walkways that provide additional usable space for people and reinforced with some plantings at the perimeter that can provide views of garden plantings from both the street and from inside the house, while leaving the majority of the front lawn intact and visually aligned with the neighbors. I've often used several of these devices to update the standard tract home landscape here in SF Bay Area gardens, in some cases losing the lawns entirely. Another approach might be to eliminate the typical foundation shrub plantings, and instead push the planting areas out to the street, thereby enclosing a large sweep of lawn at the house and putting the garden on view from inside the house, at the same time as giving a bit of privacy or at least visual separation from the street.

I don't think the situation is as stark as you think it is. The large trees you have planted to either side of the driveway will eventually form a canopy over the drive that will compete with the driveway. Another quick fix might be to build a trellis for vines that extends over the garage doors, for something like Wisteria vines of Evergreen Clematis. It doesn't appear that there is enough room between the sets of garage doors to squeeze in a planter for something vertical between the doors, but this is a common trick used in monster California homes with a wall of garage doors. If cost is not an issue, (which in this economy, I doubt is the case), you could always reduce the visual impact of the concrete driveway by redoing a portion of it as bands with more decorative contrasting hardscape materials, or even use turfblock driveable paving suitable for growing grass to bridge the two sides of the driveway. This could also be done closer to the house to form a "lawn" within the "L" shape of your house, but wouldn't make much sense to do this if you typically leave parked cars on the driveway during the day.

If you are thinking of fruit trees, I'd think about American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana)...one of the few native fruit trees, and one of the few tough fruit trees. Put some males near the road and females elsewhere. I like American Holly (ilex opaca) for areas you want an evergreen for screening.