Are there truly straight lines built into landscapes? Yes, the horizon is curved and a hanging spider may not be hanging from a truly perfect line, or a grove of poplars do not have perfect lines to them, but they are just about as straight as any straight walkways or vertical posts or horizontal rails that you'll find in a built landscape. There is a perspective by many which seems to start with a perceived notion that landscapes are supposed to be or at least strive to match nature. More often than not, a built landscape is designed to follow up the design and/or construction of very unnatural things. Sometimes it is within a natural context such as a cottage in the woods. Other times it is in totally built environments such as a parking lot on a city block. Most of the time, the composition is moving somewhat away from completely artificial form and material even if it is simply because plants are more natural than steel and their forms are never perfect. Why is there an assumption that when one is moving toward the natural he has certain thresholds that he must cross? This is really arbitrary. None will acheive 100% natural since the project's base is the man made situation that prompted the landscape design. It is inherently a transition from the artificial elements to a piece of the earth. That transition may be anywhere from extremely subtle to extremely abrubt. Usually, the idea is to achieve a logical balance where nature is not compromised more than it needs to be for the function of the building or whatever the man made situation is and that the function of the project is not compromised more than it needs to be for the sake of being "natural". Where is there a perfect edge of a planting bed in nature whether it is curved or straight? Where are planting compositions occurring in nature where everything has its own space without encroaching other plants or being succeeded in return? No matter where you put these thresholds, it is arbitrary. Certainly, any of us can decide where we most like these thresholds and design toward them and that is fine. But, wherever you stake your claim there will always be someone more natural to one side of you and someone who is supporting the built work more to the other side of you. Defining our own likes and dislikes as being factually right and wrong is rediculous. Making observations of how these affect the landscape can certainly be factually correct. But it can be equally factually correct that an artificial (straight line) layout can affect the landscape in a positive manor as well. Not everything is going to float everyone else's boat. That does not mean that they are wrong or not good. Style and personal taste are one thing. Whether something is effective or not can be a totally other matter.

I will go out on a big limb and say the front yard plantings need more structure, more boldness, and more unity. I think that is akin to what karinl is saying as well (pardon me if not). laag is the unity king, and so I will get into trouble with it by myself, but since the front of your home has a variety of different backgrounds--the wall, the inset porch, including the little fence, the driveway with garage viewed beyond-- those backgrounds themselves do not tie anything together, and so something in the garden itself has to--the choice of shrubs, or a strong edging planting, or something. Then, the fine-leaved plants disappear into the current background, and the ones you have now don't have much shape, so to me it all seems to disappear. So some kind of small tree or shrub with a trunk, or some larger-leaved plants, might give some oomph. Some of these would need to be set farther away from the house and driveway--the narrow beds hugging those edges contributes to the problem of not having the room for something with some mass or visual oomph to it. Or, as in the container suggestion, there could be a way to get this kind of structure in a non-plant material, and that might even work better. That said, it isn't necessary or even desirable for the plantings to all be continuous from the L edge (as viewed from the front) across and down the driveway edge. It might actually be better to think of having separate planting pockets in 2-3 areas in which you can design for the height and depth of the plantings that look best at that part of the house; then you would either tie them together with a low groundcover, or mulch, or potentially even the lawn connecting them. (To me, it's not always wise to tell someone that their plantings have to be one big sweep, because for some people that will create maintenance issues of large areas to mulch and to weed, compared with the simpler process of mowing the lawn, as long the way the beds are edged does not itself create more maintenance, or the lawn invade more, or something. Because otherwise, it may be too hard for you to plant fully in that whole area in a way that is affordable and looks good. In fact, I'm not sure that planting along the edge of the driveway does much of what you need from a front-yard standpoint--except that it's a fine way to grow more flowers and plants--something that I can sympathize with. Since you naturally want to try to use plants you already have, an example, I think, could include that instead of having narrow rows of roses all along the way, you might use several in a mass planting. Someone else here will really have to help me more with these concepts. Because one thing I am saying is that it lacks unity, and at the same time I am saying that I don't think you can accomplish a good thing by planting just a row of homogeneous little shrubs all along those edges. I'm not able to combine these ideas into a "do this" instruction, however. Don't despair--clearly you are getting out there and arranging and planting and learning about what you like and don't like.

P.S. d-d - I haven't read Hogarth on the Line of Beauty - I'll add that to my winter reading assignment from Ink re Dumbarton Oaks, and serpentine.... :-) A quick thought though from looking at the Wikipedia link you provided: One of the illustrations on the right side shows the line of the spine of the artist. The artist has a rather exaggerated bend at both his knnes and back; leaning precariously backwards! The line of the spine in a normal upright stance would be curved but considerably less so than that example. And to make the line of the spine a more pronounced serpentine, you are condemming the poor owner of the spine to an extremely painful disability! So, it seems to me - based on that quick scan of the wiki entry - that the line is most beautiful if it only deviates a small amount from the straight line that large deviations could well result in the painful opposite of beauty! So I think the amplitude of the curves and the distance they cover must be important factors in whether the curve looks attractive or not.

For me, the answer has been lots of practice over the years plus lots and lots of patience. Cutting in takes time! (For me, at least.) Like paintguy, I don't use tape; I did when I first began painting, but it quickly became apparent that, unless the two planes met at perfect right angles and were straight to begin with, I was giving myself a non-straight line to follow. Not to mention, unless I followed the joined area perfectly, which I could not seem to do, I'd have many touchups to do anyway. In the end, it was faster just to do the job without tape. Unlike paintguy and like moonshadow, I use an angled (Purdy) brush. The width doesn't matter to me, although I do use narrower brushes for tighter areas. My technique sounds very similar to moonshadow's as well. I also hold the brush so that I'm applying a bit more pressure to the bristles that are applying paint to the actual cutting-in line and less pressure to the bristles on the other side of the brush. This helps to naturally feather paint onto the wall (or ceiling). I just finished cutting in a 30 foot line of wall paint that abuts an angled ceiling. Honestly, really truly, I don't plan to redo any of it. It looks very good! A few more tips: after you've finished an area and have new paint on your brush, you want to paint into the paint that's already been applied, that is, do not paint a section, then start there and paint the next section. Instead, paint a section, then start at the END of the next section and paint BACK toward and into the previously painted bit, feathering lightly into the previous bit. To paint section by section back into previously applied paint, I have found that it's much easier to paint the cut-in line as a whole by working away from the direction of your dominant hand. Thus, since I am right-handed, when I started the cutting-in line on that 30 feet of wall, I started at the right corner and ended up at the end of the job at the left one, while painting each section from left to right. Had I been left-handed, I would have started at the left corner and ended up at the right one, painting each section from right to left. Another tip is that it can sometimes help a lot to find something to rest your brush hand on as you work. In the case of the room with the 30 foot wall, I had the tops of molding to two windows and a double door's top molding. As I painted, I used the molding to steady the side and palm of my hand on the pinkie finger side. We did the wall by painting it first and then cutting in (people usually do the opposite -- cut in and paint, I think). Thus, to keep the paint on the still-uncured wall clean and unmarred, I steadied myself where there was no molding by VERY lightly using the tips of the fingernails of my left hand to stabilize myself....but only if necessary. Far better not to touch the wall at all. Regardless of whether wall (or ceiling) had already been painted or not, if you do have to touch it for any reason, try to do so with the back of your hand, and lightly only. Generally the back of the hand is less dirty than the front and reduces the chance you'll get fingerprints on your surface. When painting anything, I usually have a very wet paper towel at hand. When cutting-in at ceiling height, I usually keep it on the top of a ladder. If I do use it to clean up a mistake, I'll leave that area alone until completely dried and go back and touch up later on. Another tip: to really reduce any difference in the appearance of paint applied with roller on wall or ceiling vs. the cut-in area, after the cut-in paint has dried, I'll follow the whole thing with a small roller. With a steady hand, it's possible to get within a fraction of an inch of the cut-in line. And again, as when using an angled brush to cut in, I apply slightly less pressure on the roller's outer edge. And again as well, I work section by section back into a previously painted section. I also agree with paintguy about painting wall paint on the ceiling. I initially tried edging the wall-ceiling joint precisely. In the end, it was much easier to go a tiny fraction onto the ceiling. I estimate I did it by maybe an eighth of an inch, if that. From floor level, you can't tell at all. Teeny artist brushes -- I now use those only in corners, where two surfaces are not straight, and in cases in which I must not get paint on a surface. Example: I had to cut in with the wall paint around the end of a stained, curved stair tread. I will be using one (along with a regular angled brush) when I paint a vertical piece of floor-to-ceiling molding that separates one of the walls in the room we're painting from a stone wall. The molding on the stone side was cut with a jig saw and follows the curved, natural line of the stones. Thus, I can't just use an angled brush along that edge. Whomever did the job initially painted the grout or caulk or wood fill or whatever it is along the stone (sigh), so now I'll have to do the same. Since I don't want paint on stone, I'll meticulously follow the previous paint job, using a tiny brush. I actually had to do something similar when painting the master bedroom. Went from white walls to a mushroom color. The room has 16 wood ceiling beams set into the walls. Thus, two coats of wall color and 16 beams X 2 (beams ending in two walls) is the equivalent of 64 beams as it were! And of course, because the beams are set into the walls, there were three sides to each beams -- left, right, and bottom. To make it worse, on one wall, 5 beams were over an open stairwall. That part was a bit of a challenge....Suffice to say I am never repainting those walls!