dreedree, to post the landscaper's plan, first scan or photograph it. Then post it on a photo-sharing site like Photobucket and put a link here. If you've done it correctly, it will show up in your preview. These are GW's instructions on posting pics: http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/pepper/2002072150000611.html And here are the instructions from a late GW poster, gonefishin:

Thanks for the comments! Yes, I am in high-learning mode, and I am not the author of the plan, so I am more than happy for the critique. :-) Good questions regarding scale. Let's see...the house section next to the flagstone path is the garage - about 24 x 24. It's drawn a bit small on the not-perfectly-to-scale plan I linked to, but that should be a rough guide. The blank space in front of that is the driveway (someone asked about that). So, the beds are pretty large, and per the designer, this plan leaves a good amount of space for growth and for additional plantings. What is also not shown in that side area is that there are a couple large trees in there as well - one mature maple about 1/3 of the way from the front, and a basswood grouping about 2/3 of the way back as well. The width of the walkway between the garage and the bed is about 9'. Couple other notes - ws is white snowberry. About 5' behind those is a rail fence, and then the neighbors have some fairly sickly (but lots of them!) arbor vitae in mulch marching in a line along their side of the fence. The ferns are kind of down a hill, where the woods start. From the brick walkway, you would not be able to see the full plant. By way of example, currently there are volunteer lilies of the valley there, and a million maple saplings. From the walk, you can't see the lilies at all, and you can only see the maples I've neglectfully let get a foot tall or more. I am going to take a look at cimicifuga and ligularia, and the silver mound artemisia mentioned. I've been wondering about the King of Hearts...he originally had geranium biokova, which I didn't like (opinions?), and then put these in, but the feathery leaves...wondering whether something with a "stronger"/simpler leaf structure might keep it from getting scrappy-looking. As far as annuals - there is currently a small annual bed in front of some existing spirea in the front bed (there are 8 spirea and a very large yew in that spot, as well as three arbor vitae stumps the prior owners had had and then removed). I like the ability to have some annuals, in addition to containers and my windowboxes, and raised it with him, and he sort of thought we would think about where it would be most effective as we get in to the planting process, which is fine with me - I certainly want someone working on this who isn't rigid if conditions for their plan turn out not to be good. I will have an irrigation system - the space is far too big for me to manage by hand and give it what it needs. I know this from experience (and the realities of my weekday life), even with far fewer plantings and pretty hardy stuff. Laughing about the Mexican Fiesta - no, that's not my goal! (Also laughing because my home uses a lot of shades of these colors - greens, browns, warm reds and yellows - and while it is colorful, I think and I'm told that it's a really warm, welcoming feeling that is both formal and embracing...how bright the colors are does vary by room, though.) My thought was that most of the time these things won't be in bloom (or not all at the same time), and the greens would also balance out the big colors. I wonder whether I should mix in some other astilbe colors in those large areas of it. I want to keep the eye interested and pulled down that big bed and while I like the pop of the red up front, I do prefer rust/orange reds vs. pure reds or blue-reds, and that astilbe fanal seems to be a pretty pure red. Absolutely want to think past spring! I was looking at what gold tide looks like post-flowering (I was worried I'd have only sticks for so much forsythia...which is true for winter, but summer looks nice, fall maybe unremarkable). Another thought - he'd originally had more of the Centerglow in the front bed leading to the front door, where there is now forsythia. I was concerned the Centerglow was dull in terms of flower interest and maybe too purple. I am less concerned now, having gone out and looked at these things quite a bit, on the purple-yness, so it's a thought if the forsythia is a bad idea. Or mixing? He's into the repetition, and while I appreciate it, I also love gardens where the plants tumble over one another with underplantings and some individuals or irregular spacing/placement, though I think for this house I see that more as good for side areas or areas further from the house.

IMHO, this type of planting that the OP shows in the original post, is somewhat of a reversal to mass landscaping that was done about 40-50 years ago by builders in the "newly developed suburbs" Hubby and I bought a home 28 years ago, in a well developed, but small development whose homes where already about 25-30 years old. Houses where built in the old fashioned design of remove just enough trees to build the house and leave plenty of land for each home. Houses have 1 acre of land, lots of trees around it, most with quite large land frontage etc. It's when the landscapers came in that the disasters where created and it was with every home in the development. Nothing was appropriately planted, tress where shrubs should be and trees that would grow to be huge disasters in their planted locations where placed all over the place and at the foundation of houses. When we bought our home, my hubby thought I was crazy. the house was wonderful, the land was more than an acre to have. Beautiful frontage, very long and large driveway that holds more than 8 cars, and surrounded by beautiful woods and an already chain link fenced in back yard for the 2 year old to play in and added to all that, it was a dead end road and we where the next to last house on the street. It was the landscaping that was the total disaster. I kept telling hubby, don't worry about that part. It will take several years to repair the disaster, but I could do it, I grew up on a summer flower farm. It's been a daunting task over the past 38 years but this is what was and has been done. The front of the house was covered with arbovite trees, all leaning on the front of both sides of the front stairs. One side completely covered the picture window so that no light could come in. 4 weeks after moving in, we cut the trees down to the ground. In the fall we dug out all the crappy soil, filled with fresh loam, peat, etc. In the spring I got to work on that first bed. Luckily the 2 blue hydrangeas from the market where hardy to this area and they have come back every year, huge and more beautiful every year. Added to the planting with my potted herb garden and the old plastic birdbath that won't hold water but works beautifully as a container planter. and of course other containers end up arriving there every year Opposite the picture window, smack in the middle of the front yard, 2 beautiful Colorado Blue Spruce where planted. They looked beautiful and where as healthy as could be. On the other hand, I knew what the future held for them and it wasn't something I wanted in the front yard, especailly when they where already approaching 7 feet tall. So at Christmas time, we cut those down and gave them as gifts to 2 very close friends for Xmas trees. The following spring, this bed was dug out, leaving the very low remains of the spruce stumps on either end of the bed It gets filled with lots of annuals and has perennials in it as well. lupine under the hanging poles on either side dianthus firewitch on either side of the birdbath in the center under the arbor The trench with bark mulch that you can see in the pics of the flower bed in the center of the front yard, had a 3-4 foot hedge in it. No idea why, but that was all cut down to the ground and I fill the area with pots of plants. To the left of the center bed, way in the front on the left side, you can barely see what was left of a rhodie. It was 8 feet tall when we moved in. I had hubby cut it way down to about 2 feet. You should have seen his face as he kept saying he was killing it. Of course we all know better than that, rhodies do quite well with even severe cutting. Finally, last year I had my fill of it being in the way. It was cut to the ground and I'm keeping it from growing back. The opposite side of the front stairs at the foundation had the same arbovite trees growing that where huge as well. We cut those down the first few weeks that we lived here, but I never got to do anything with a bed there. Oh, the small stump is all that remains of another rhodie that was planted there. 10 feet tall when we moved in. Cut down to 2 feet and kept there till this new garden bed was dug. The kids took it down to the ground because it would block the view of the new bed. I had no complaints as the beat me to the punch in cutting it down to the ground. I guess, what I'm showing and trying to say is what is shown in the OP first pic is, what I would call, a reversal of fortune. I return to some really dumb and stupid design plantings that existed 30 years ago. No thought in what is being planted, no idea of size that trees and shrubs will grow and the bark mulch mounded is the perfect ingredient to kill what they planted. Fran Almost 8 years ago, when my mother passed away, my daughters friends came in and dug the bed for me, filled it with fresh loam and garden soil and covered it with bark mulch, while we where at my mother's funeral. They knew I would be digging out my mother's perennials from her apartment garden and they created a perfect location to put them in. All I had to do was go get them and bring them home, dig the holes and put them in. I've kept it as her memorial garden and everything that grows in it where either her perennials, annuals from seeds of hers that she had and plants that she wanted to get and still hadn't gotten. That fenced in back yard, the one with the chain link fence, no longer has young children in it. Both have long grown up, 25 and 30. So it is used to hold all my wintersown containers through the winter and until they are planted. The fence itself gets filled with at least 50 different kinds of morning glory plants.

Hi Sue, my advice is to mix shrubs and perennials of different heights: ground cover and other small perennials near the street, then going up to the house medium size perennials and finally shrubs - 3/4 feet maximum - at the top. To let you have an idea the plants could be Thymus, Lavandula, Convolvolus and Cistus: easy to grow, low maintenance, long-lasting flowering and drought tolerant in case of water shortages. But of course there are many more possible associations. Just note that to harmonize the sloped area with the flat one you should plant some shrubs also there and reduce the grass area. I hope you enjoy my advice, best wishes, Barbara