Pretty house. What I would do is get a landscaper to come and propose a plan. It's really hard to create a nice landscape without a designer. We had one who designed our yard for $500.00 - we had the option to do it ourselves or pay them. There was also a garden center with a designer that offered it free - so long as we bought a fair amount of plants from them

I was going to suggest the same thing as tinker (whose home is beautifully landscaped, btw). We also had a landscape design group do a plan for us. The plan was a couple of hundred dollars (which was credited back to us if we had them do the work). They were willing to do any level of work after the plan, from bed preparation, to all the plantings to installing the hardscape and irrigation. In your case, it sounds like your DH will be doing the work, so you would pay for the plan outright, but I think it would be a really good investment. The additional benefit is that even if you don't decide to do the entire plan in the beginning, you have a well thought out roapmap of where to go in the future if you decide to add to your plantings AND it would take into consideration the entire property, not just the front yard. Good luck! We are building the retaining walls for our landscaping project this week, so I have landscape on the brain. lol. j.

Another vote for a designer. Go look at what s/he has done elsewhere to increase the likelihood of being comfortable with his/her plans.

Also, be willing to pay for two plans, one for immediate implementation, and one for 5 years from now. The 5 year plan should show the maturity of the now-plan plants, and be a guideline for the finished effect.

The designer may decide to have a bit of stonework (adapting that slope) so get recommendations/referrals for a good stonemason.

Another vote for a designer, especially with the slopes on your lot. A well designed landscape will increase the value of house and will help sell you house when it comes time to sell you house. A poorly designed landscape will only drag it down. Be sure to plan for proper drainage around your house too.

I'm an [amature, though I sell pieces from time to time] artist, so I intend to design my own.

I feel the art of landscape design has been somewhat over mystified. I think its not unresonable to design your own, if you meet two conditions: First you know gardening-- what plants grow well in your neighborhood, water needs, growth rates and mature size, etc. Second, you need to understand enough about art that when you see landscapping you like, you are able to identify the reasons it succeeds, when you see one you don't, you can likewise give a detailed analysis of why it fails.

If you understand the artistic principles of proportion, contrast, color, etc., and the gardening principles of planting according to mature sizes, grouping according to water use and exposure needs, I think you can do fine designing your own.

But if you don't by all means get some help. Remember that you are hiring an artist, not a hole digger. You are essentially buying a picture you won't see completed for some years. It must suit YOUR taste, enhance YOUR property, express YOUR personality, not the landscappers. Be aware that there are trends in landscapping that get repeated relentlessly until they become bad cliches, just like in interior design.

That said, I'd definetly go with something 'no mow' on that bank. Personally, I'd like a stacked stone retaining wall, with a few natural, low maintenence, wildflower looking plants like Red Ace potentilla. But that's me, thinking about my climate-- your area may offer many other possibilities, and your taste may be different.

Thanks for the replies so far. I would love to use a landscape designer, I'm not sure a few hundred bucks is in the budget at this time :) Right now we are mostly concerned with getting some grass and basic stuff down, and will worry about the details later.

Like someone said, we just want a general idea that we can build on later. IF we do get a designer - where do I look for one? We live in a small town where things are very old school and it's not easy to find resources without asking around A LOT!

Any other ideas/opinions on what you think would look good?

THanks :)

liptonjl, Do you have a site plan you can share? You might get a little more feedback if people could see how the house sits on your lot, where the driveway will be, and then compare that to the pictures to understand where the slopes are.

We had a designer do our pool and basic hardscape and we determined the plants that would go where. I made several changes once things were undeway, but having that initial plan was really important.

If this was my house, I would do a terraced hillside with meandering steps to the mailbox. Something similar to this backyard pic with narrower steps.

{{gwi:1450519}}

If you do do it yourself, the plants will really get as big as the label says so be sure to space them properly and use them in places where they won't overwhelm their surroundings when they are mature--fill in the spaces between plants with annual now--you will surprised at how quickly shrubs and bushes grow. Also, be sure to use a variety of plants so that if a disease strikes one type of tree plant, you'll have plenty of other plantings left. I live in the midwest and there is an ash borer that is killing all the ash trees in the midwest. Ash trees are very popular and there are alot of varieties of ash trees and many people have only (or predominantly) ash trees in their yards. If the ash borer gets to our area there will be a lot of bare landscapes if all the ash trees die. At our old house which we landscaped 20 years ago, our designer put in 5 ash trees in our front yard (1.7 acre lot) but also lots of other types of trees so if the ash borer hits our old house it will be sad for the new owners to lose those 5 trees and it will have an impact on the design but there will still be lots of other trees left so the landscaping will still look nice. We used the same designer for our new house and have a lot of types of trees at our new house too. Good luck.