Wow, what a beautiful home! You better post some pictures of your landscaping progress, it's going to be gorgeous!

Azaleas will probably be fine along the north side of your home; they shouldn't get a lot of sun there. However, I would skip the boxwood hedge and go with something lower, like groundcover juniper or artemesia. Those will be lower maintenance than the boxwoods, too, which take precise pruning to look nice.

Be sure to get your soil tested to see what the pH and mineral content is like; if your soil is alkaline, you'd be better off going with something that doesn't need as much acid as azaleas. It's a lot easier to change plants than to change the soil!

A large flowering shrub, like Japanese Snowball Viburnum, accented by some smaller perennials would effectively hide the AC unit. Just be careful to pick something that won't grow INTO the unit, like asian jasmine!

I don't know about using roundup; when in doubt, just dig the topsoil out in big clump and resign yourself to a lot of weeding the first year or two.

Other suggestions - A low annual bed around the crepe myrtle would be lovely, maybe lined with the same kind of red brick as your house, if you can find it. I like curved beds rather than the straight-across beds found in most landscapes; it seems to soften the lines of the house.

Go for scale! You have a tall, elegant house, so go for tall, elegant plantings! A little bitty row of plants across the front will be dwarfed by the height of the house. One of those tall, skinny junipers would help tie the landscaping to the house.

To me, this begs to have a vine on it. According to Neil Sperry, vines don't damage masonry, but it's better to keep them off of wood. Maybe something on a trellis, or a flowering plant like passion flower, bougainvillea or morning glory (especially since you're so far south!)

So that's my two (or three) cents! Good luck!

I use roundup when I make my flowerbeds. I first lay out a garden house the shape of the bed I want. Its best to make S shapes instead of straight lines, when doing a flowerbed, because of mowing later. Then only use the purple cap round up, spray on a non windy day, it has to be at least 75 degrees and sunny. Its best to do if the soil has been watered first. It has to stay on for at least 24 hrs, for it to really work, and if it rains, you have to start over. In 7 to 10 days, just get all the mulch, compose, and cow manure that you can afford and empty the bags on this area( I get mine at wal-mart).Then just till all this in the soil, you do not even have to remove the old dead grass, it acts as mulch. I remove the hose, and mark with spray paint, or you may hit the hose with the tiller. Best to use a small tiller, its easier to handle. You can rent a small tiller for about $30 a day. Then outline with either steel landscape outliners, or bricks, and you are on you way. When you plant your plants put some of the 3 month fertilizer in the hole before planting. Best time to plant shrubs in Texas is Feb. or Oct.

St augustine is stupid easy to kill. Round up is not needed. I just scalp with my lawnmower at the lowest setting and use the CLAW garden tool (one of the best garden tools) to loosen up the soil, get rid of runners, plant stuff and cover with mulch. St augustine won't come back. it's not like bermuda grass...

By the way, azaleas are very common in Houston.

Where are you located? I was born and raised in Houston. My mom still have her house there at 290 and 610, just outside the 610 loop and she has a lot of encore azaleas in the backyard. they were still blooming in january! I'm really digging that Moonlight encore azaleas, Pure white flowers. It could stand out more behind red bricks?? It is rapid grower for encore azaleas to 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide. there are many choices to choose from. I also like Embers (red) encore azaleas. It grows slow. It stays low at 3 feet tall and 4 feet wide (mine has not reached that size after 2 years). As long as your spot gets some protection from harsh afternoon sun, they should do fine. The main thing is that they need a lot of mulching, 3-4 inches thick of aged hardwood mulch. I get them from LETCO (living earth technology - i got NATIVE mulch which is relatively cheap for my mom's azaleas over thanksgiving)

It looks like your lot is flat (same as my mom's) you might want to plant azaleas a few inches above ground leave and use acidic sand based soil to put down around then then mulch. You have to provide fresh mulch every year. Azaleas hate bare ground...

Thanks for the feedback. I will keep Encore Azaleas on the list, and will specifically check out white-blooming varieties. We want to keep them trimmed to just below the window ledge.

We updated our plans a bit over the weekend, and have decided to create a bed along the front of the house, stretching around and running along the left side property line (the driveway is on the right side property line). Because the house is pier and beam, we can raise the bed quite a bit and not impact the foundation. So we will raise it probably 5" or so with garden soil, enough to provide adequate drainage. Then a couple inches of mulch.

Along the front might be the Azaleas with either a low boxwood or Jasmine to hide the feet of the Azaleas. Between the two, I would like to have some sun-tolerant caladiums popping out during the summer.

As for the A/C units, there will ultimately be two of them, as we need to relocate the second zone unit from the back to accomodate a deck. One of my neighbors has a Podocarpus hedge along his side fence property line that is shallow, but tall, and it looks to be exactly what we need (i.e., shallow).

Along the property line, we think a mixed perennial bed. I have on my list to check out Knock Out Roses, but haven't yet seen a mature one so I can't figure out how large they will get. We also like Society Garlic, Agapanthus, and Foxtail Fern because they are so easy. I'm sure there are a ton of other perennials and grasses out there to consider. Our main goal is to keep the front tidy, and experiment in the backyard with a more natural plan.

We need something with presence at the left corner of the two-story section of the house. Mommyfox, you correctly noted that the house is tall and pretty close to the street, so we need something to bring it into scale with the garden. I'm not a fan of the skinny junipers, but I'm unsure what would be appropriate.

Now that the exterior painting is almost complete, we are very excited to start on the landscaping. Now to find a soil yard that delivers inside the loop!

Try LETCO. They have everything including dirt, mulch, stones, you name it. Although they have azaleas specialty soil, I wouldn't recommend it because they are pure organic material meaning they will disappear within few years back to ground level. I'd go with a mixture of pine bark fines and sandy loam soil (inorganic) which is usually slightly acidic, 50/50. At worst, they will sink halfway there after a few years and stay there. It should be no problem as long as you do not use chemicals of any kind that would destroy benefical soil microbes esp fungi which is responsible for keeping pH down. Azaleas and acidic loving plants thrives in type of soil that is very high population count of fungi. That's why I recommending mulching every year to provide optimal environment for beneficial fungi to thrive. You can use alfalfa pellets or soybean meal to feed azaleas. That's what I do.

More plants to check out is abelia. They bloom quite a bit through the summer into fall. I don't care much for regular type which looks a bit messy and wild but I think the dwarf type is pretty nice. They are evergreen in houston and can handle partial shade. Nandina isn;t bad either.

You could grow tall azaleas in the back and low growing azaleas in the front. The low mounding type like Embers do not show their "legs". I think there are like 23 varieties that differ in growth habit.

I have KO roses and they seem to vary in size depending on which one. Double KO grows fast to 6 feet in 2 years. You can buy the smallest one in bunches to save money. Chamblee nursery online comes to mind because they have best price. Rainbow KO seems to stay more compact less than 3 feet but too early to know as I only had them for a year. I would kill for pure white KO. Supposedly they are coming out in 2-3 years after trials. KO roses are perfect for an area that gets a lot of sun and blooms pretty much round year in Houston. Very easy to grow. Basically plant and forget with mulches around them.

You also can look into japanese maples. They can be grown in Houston under partial shade. www.metromaples.com to look at the choices since it's in ft worth and you know how hot it can get and sometimes no rain. one good thing about Houston, it never seems to go into bad drought like up here. At the worst in 2005, Houston managed to get 35 inches of rain which is like normal for us up here!

Here is a link that might be useful: LETCO

When making a bed, use your lawnmower to outline it and scalp at the same time....it will save on edging later if your lawnmower naturally follows the curve of your bed!

In place of the tall juniper that was suggested, I would
suggest you look at Sky Pencil Holly. It is also, a slim, very tidy, tall evergreen. And hopefully, it will easy to find in Houston.

I ran across Sky Pencil at Buchanan's in the Heights...it's a very cool specimen, as is Will Fleming Holly. I also found a couple of Japanese Maples that looked like they might work.

I have some friends who have a ton of Cast Iron to give away. What do you think of Cast Iron across the front with the low boxwood in front of it? Since the house faces north, I *think* it might work, but the sun is high in the sky during the summer and so I wonder if it would still be too much sun.