Well, let me start by saying that I don't have a mailbox like that, so my opinions are exactly that - opinions - and no more. I think you have a point when you say they don't look great growing out of the grass. But they don't make really convincing flowers either :-) What a mailbox garden in an otherwise plain yard says to me is "I couldn't think of anywhere else to put a flowerbed." That said, if having a mailbox garden is important to your wife, it doesn't seem worth having a war over. They can be cute, and they are actually a bit of an American cultural icon :-) An image search brings up lots of ideas for them by the way, including a charming row of mailboxes springing up out of the grass - but it seems to me that mailboxes have a function. I would think that function is best served if you have a brick pad around/beside it to stand on, which would also make mowing around it easier. Maybe a brick or paver pad, or even a 24" x 24" slab, with the flowers adjacent and good edging in a nicely shaped bed would be the best of all worlds. For my taste, a bed without hardscape always looks a bit accidental (unless it has really crisp edges). I always say that landscape design is for people, and so what constitutes good design in each place depends on who lives there. We, and the renegade gardener, can only give some objective guidelines, which if followed slavishly in all cases would create their own kind of undesirable outcome. So your landscape should definitely reflect your preferences. I'm also not a foundation planting guru - I prefer no foundation planting in the vast majority of cases - but let me take a stab at the problem with yours. I remember in an old thread, our guru Laag saying that a dark-foliaged plant reads in the landscape as a dark hole, or something to that effect, and gave as a solution something about backing it with something green. So one possibility is that the purple foliage is itself the problem. Only in this case, maybe if you put something bright green in front of it, using the barberries as a background, they might look better - deepening the bed to accommodate another layer of planting. You could also consider extending the foundation planting as far to the left as an antidote. Maybe move a barberry beyond the house corner. It looks on the aerial view as if you have some space there. But if you do that I would actually shift the planting weight away from the front door. The other general idea I was hoping you might pick up from those threads I linked earlier was about creating space in front of a recessed doorway instead of shutting it in. You have a fair bit going on there - I don't like what's in the middle either. But somehow what really bugs me here is that you have two uneven sections of your house, the garage one and the one to the left of the door. The one to the left of the door is smaller already, and your planting is hiding more of it; your tree will later do more of the same. That's why I would rather be able to see (or at least discern) the foundation of that section. And in contrast, the plantings on the garage side do such an inadequate job of hiding any of its mass that they look a bit... incongruous. They have no hope. They do not begin to address the blank mass over the garage door, which I think is what needs... screening, disguising, balancing... things that plants may not be able to do here (your tree on the right will maybe do it later). I don't know all the things that a person can do with that wall. Perhaps a little rooflet to match the one over the window on the right? A section of grey siding? Out of my realm there, but you get the idea. But in pursuit of having plants help with it, I would draw the bed on the right up toward the house instead of down to the driveway entrance. That will also maintain better sightlines for driveway egress. KarinL

Hey everyone! Thanks for all the advice. Unfortunately, I don’t live near the coast, I’m in Glendale, which is valley. The highest humidity I’ve experienced here was maybe 60% during rain. August can get past 100°F. Is this okay for JM’s? I’ve been providing the Crimson Queen bright shade with a few minutes of direct sun on half of the tree around 2-ish. I guess I should’ve worded that better. I want to get either a Bloodgood or Emperor 1*, air-layer it, and use the resulting clones as rootstock for the Crimson Queen. I want to keep both trees, that’s why I want to air layer to produce more rootstock. I just heard Crimson Queens (or any weeping dissectum varieties) don’t air-layer at all. Is this true? Thanks everyone! *Thanks for correcting me gardengal48!

I very much appericate everyones suggestions!! Thank you so much! The house faces south and the view from the window isnt really the greatest, but I do tend to keep it airy with pruning. I'm on a corner & stop sign intersection -- there is quite a bit of traffice that goes by, I'm also on top of a hill so anyone who drives by has nice view right into the livingroom if the blinds are left open. Althought, I do have a small sliver of harbour view when standing from the upstairs window... Thanks again everyone!

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) Thanks very much for the reply - do you think I should prune the holed and burnt leaves? Or would that be too much stress to put on the tree before repotting it? I know it's September now and that's probably a little late in the season, but it gets warmer though fall every year now in NYC. And yes, I was really surprised that they didn't QA this tree before sending it out for delivery - but to their credit, I didn't even have to ask for a replacement, they just immediately shipped another after I showed them photos. I suspect they sourced it from an affiliated grower and maybe didn't have eyes on it before it was collected for delivery.