First, thank you everyone for being so generous with your time and ideas. Yardvaark - I can definitely see your point about treating trees as sculpture to add interest to the front of the house. And, woodyoak, I really love the idea of gradually raising the height of bushes/trees to bring the eye up to the white pines. Since the spans of brick are larger on that side of the house - it would seem that using taller and larger plants to that end would solve two problems since there is quite a bit more brick to cover on the far end of the house. Yard, I see you electronically removed the much hated bushes. I'm posting a new sketchup image which illustrates one of our biggest challenges with the space - the very significant square footage between the house and driveway. Can we fill the foundation bed to cover the land and if we do - will that hide the architectural/sculptural nature of the trees and bushes? Seems, Yard, you were thinking mostly ground cover plus some interesting tree forms. Any thoughts on what we might plant in the front yard to focus the attention toward the entry? We will be relocating the dogwood that obstructs the view of the front door from the driveway. Other ideas for new plantings that might draw the eye up toward the house? Yard, hubby and I just read your last post. First, the comparison to a Yugo and now Whitney Houston. It is more than he can take. I think we've broken him. Thank you, thank you, thank you. :-) On a serious note - I was thinking we would remove the dogwood but it looks like you've moved it closer to the house. I read on another GW forum the advice "people are drawn to spaces for people". With that guidance in mind - we have been hoping to give the front door the greatest visibility possible. Am I making to much of a clear view to the front door?

CEF, Molly is adorable! I want to kiss her snout. She sounds like quite the little rascal. Love it. You definitely are a busy one, I am so impressed with all this building of things. Are you self-taught? I wish I knew how to do some of that. Kitchen cabinets! Awesome. Our kitchen is original (not a good thing, 1973) and I'd love new cabinets. Reworked, recycled, whatever! Just different, pretty and CLEAN. I planned to paint ours when we moved in last year-- bought all the supplies, watched some videos... just never did it. I underestimated how long EVERYTHING would take. Every room had wallpaper and I figured I'd take a weekend or two before we moved our stuff in and get that out quick. HA!! It took 2 months, just to get it all down. And half the walls still have spackle. It's been 13 months and we have two rooms done. Two! Whatever. I'll get to it. I am a hairstylist and only work Fridays and Saturdays (til the kids are both in school anyway) so it's difficult to take time off. I do it now and then though and if I'd known about this plant swap sooner, I probably would have. Is there a website I can bookmark so I will know early next year? Our rancher is brick. I'll post a pic of it when we bought it, with the row of yews. I couldn't wait to get them out but now that they are finally, I'm a little overwhelmed at how much work it is to get that area in order, long before plants will even be concerned. Right now the dirt is all turned over and weeds are everywhere-- I pulled up all that I could see last week (almost a full day of weeding!) and then we had that crazy rain and few days later, weeds everywhere again. I posted about it on the soil forum but nobody responded so today I went out there with my pump sprayer full of vinegar and covered every square inch. I know that can kill the stuff I want as well but there's nothing out there but weeds so I figured I'd give it a go. Edge out a bigger bed tomorrow with my new edger (SO EXCITED) and then maybe mix in some topsoil and turn it over before mulching. I may not plant anything this year after all. Use containers so I can make sure the soil is good first, move things around for a bit til I get a feel. Who knows. I want to paint the shutters too, not liking this green. Medium-darkish taupe maybe? With just a hint of green/blue? Leaning more toward the brown, less the grey. I'm off to research fertilizers for my new maple, and perhaps my Mikawa Yatsubusa, if it's not dead yet. I know Al has some good stuff on here about it, found another member recommending him when I was google searching a few minutes ago ; ) oh and p.s.- you mentioned liking the weathered look, have you considered making raised beds out of pallets? Saw something on pinterest about that and it looked great, plus they are usually free somewhere.

I've been thinking how best to answer this question ever since you posted........it is not exactly straight forward :-) First, all named cultivars of Japanese maples are grafted......or almost always. The shoots of the desired cultivar are taken from the parent tree as cuttings and then grafted on to a seedling species JM. For upright trees (like Bloodgood), the grafts are typically about 6-8 above the root flare but can be higher. Usually not lower - low grafts are typically reserved for the weeping forms like most dissectums. Grafting is done while everything is very tiny - really just seedlings. Part of the appeal of Japanese maples is their often very sculptural natural growth habit. This can sometimes be enhanced by pruning but is seldom created by pruning. A great deal of this sculptural quality is determined with the selection of the tree at a young age, looking for attributes like low branching or interesting bends. And then you make the most of those going forward both through training and very selective pruning.

interesting you would say that... yesterday my DW and I single-handedly moved an 1100 pound boulder from the driveway where it was delivered around back onto our deck onto a 24" high platform where it will become an focal point in our "Zen Room" outdoor area. (It will be quite different from the outdoor room pictured... not sure if I think their room is really really cool, or ???) After worrying about it for over a month, the actual process of moving that sucker was much easier than we expected... pictures will follow, but I want to get more done on the project first...