Pondy,, Thank you for your ideas!,, Yes we are planning to do "something" with the front and yes,, a porch running along the whole front is exactly what we want. There are alot of "wartime" homes in this city and there are a couple that really catch my eye and they have the porch and some dormers also. That would be my DH's job,, Mine is the landscaping,, :) I agree that a row of cedars are boring but,, we needed something tall and quick to hide the view from the neighbors on that side. It was the only thing I could think of that would do the job quickly. Couldn't I add some shrubs in front of them? I just have trouble seeing the shape and placement.. WOWLilacs are just too common here, I cut down a hedge last summer that was here for over 50 years!,, I love them to death but not in my front yard, it almost killed me to cut those down and miss out on the beautiful fresh lilac scent in my house and yard, but they were just in the wrong place and were never pruned and just looked terrible where they were. Tamarix scares me because of all the bad hype it's getting about the salt damaging the soil and also being invasive. But I get what you're trying to say with those types of shrubs. Landscape designers are not too plentiful here in Saskatchewan and if you actually end of hiring one you better be prepared to dish out a lot for their services. So, I don't think that is an option, I really just want some beds and how to run them in my yard. I really don't love the whole front yard park look. If you look on the right hand side very close to the ground you can see a stump that wasn't ground out yet. That was from one of three 60 foot spruce trees we had removed. So no worries there, I will NEVER plant another one of them. Thanks for all your help and time you spent trying to help me. I need all the help I can get. Hopefully I will be able to use a little of everyones input and end up with a beautiful front yard!

Hi Homebound, replied to your post over in windows and followed your link over here. A lot of wonderful ideas here! Your original idea of what to do in the front sounds real good. I would keep the trees too, it is so rare to have two large trees nowadays. I cannot see where they are relative to the edge of your yard and sidewalk but if they are far enough to the middle of the yard, I would build a nice wood covered patio designed around the trees. In other words, when it is done, it will look like you trucked in the trees to complement the structure. A nice low picket fence or rod-iron or ranch style along the front marks a nice boundary and also provides security. If you need the grass for children, I would then plant low brush along fence line to prevent people from being able to just hop over. An alternative will be to convert some of the lawn into flower beds and install secluded seating areas. It is nice to have a place like this where you can just do as you please from scratch! Have fun!

That looks a lot like a Camellia (maybe C. sasanqua?) to me. Has it ever bloomed? It may not that far south. If that's what it is, it's evergreen and doesn't get huge, maybe 10-12 feet. I'd find out for sure before I take them out. They don't have invasive roots, so they won't hurt the foundation or grow up into the house. Even if they don't ever bloom, they are beautiful evergreen shrubs. I'm not good at landscaping, so I have no other recommendations.

Flo, I like your sketch very much (although without knowing the basic sun/wind info I mentioned above, it may or may not be what she needs.) However, the suggestion of polished black Japanese river stones for a first time home owner in Oklahoma is probably not helpful.b You will drain her budget and she will find herself looking at dusty, not shiny, stones. If she likes your concept of creating a dry bed/ river effect (as I do), you or someone else might teach her how to do this with grasses native to her area. Ones that can be easily propagated by division, require no water or weeding, and will blow in her prairie breezes while attracting birds and wildlife. Can, I urge you to google images of landscapes by Oehme, Van Sweden. They are known for using sweeps of native plants, especially grasses. My suggestion to you is to play around with flexible hoses or ropes in dividing your wide open space to see what shapes please you. Then imagine the spaces filled with different color blocks of various heights. Which ones do you want moving, which ones static? Designing a three dimension landscape from scratch like yours can be overwhelming. Break it down into digestible parts. 1) Gather all information about your conditions. 2) Get out the hoses and ropes and draw on the ground like a canvas.