Wow, I didn’t expect a response so quickly – thanks! The porch
was definitely a lot of work but we’re quite happy with it. We’re planning a big
family BBQ to break it in this summer.

I had come back to provide a sketch I had created showing
the layout of the porch and house which is provided below. Here’s a link to the
full size image:

http://www.corvette-restoration.com/porch.jpg

We like your concept and definitely give you kudos on
picking up that the edge of the driveway is not parallel to the house – nice
attention to detail! We really like the layout you came up with the path, a
very different take than what we had in mind. We’re a bit unsure about the tree
on the left since we had originally thought of putting something on the right
side – more toward the gazebo.

What are your thoughts on a short stone or block wall or something
like that along the edge of driveway and along the house side of the path?
Whereas the grade slopes down toward the driveway in this area we want
something to keep runoff from washing mulch onto the driveway. Lots of water
comes off the porch roof. Do you have other suggestions for edging?

Do you think some short shrubs or bushes would look ok in
front of the gazebo instead of the shorter flowers and perennials? Maybe azaleas
or something like that? We definitely want to mix in some smaller flowering perennials
though. We live in Southern Maine so our
challenge is to come up with a selection of plantings that look nice in the summer
(we’d like lots of flowering plants) but still provides some substance during
the winter.

I added a car to the first illustration to show another reason why to pull the beginning of the walk farther from the house. (Other reasons are to create adequate space for planting and to create visual lines that INVITE toward the entrance.)

The most I would do along the drive edge is a low CURB. And it would fade into the grade as it approached the steps. It should be at least 8" width but 12" better. I haven't shown the walk flared where it meets the drive but you could do that, if desired.

Mulch washing should only be a temporary condition controlled by proper soil elevation and ultimately, by plantings completely covering the soil.

Looking at the overall view of the house (first picture above,) there is no planting of height that breaks up the expanse of architecture and makes the house look "fit in" to the surroundings. It looks much like a structure just sitting on top of the ground. IMO, it craves the small tree (like a redbud.) On the other hand, the gazebo, being at the end of the house has a lot of trees in the background that tower over it. If I was to place a tree in the vicinity it would be some distance forward and to the right side. I would not crowd the gazebo with a tree.

You can plant whatever you wish at the base of the gazebo, but decide first how much of its base you are trying to hide. Seems like most any small shrub will hide all of its base. I think I would make the surrounding bed even wider than I've shown. One of the facets of the gazebo could be punctuated with an ornamental grass clump.

You only asked about the house but I am interested in the view from the front door and also the view at the gazebo. I might spend a lot of time sitting on that porch if I had it. I would want something interesting to look at. You need to find your USDA growing zone. It looks like there are three in Maine.

I like the tree as Yardvaark placed it. That side needs something (green) with height.

Another important thing in his drawing is the width of the path. Do not make it any narrower.I really do not like the paths that flare out at the end. To me it just looks like a mistake was made. Look at different materials and get the path put in first.

Regarding your plants I think you might want a mixed border. It could have small shrubs with the perennials. It is easy to make a messy border but takes more skill to make an attractive border Can you give an example or inspiration photo of what you consider grandiose? I hope you will continue to post here but the folks in Perennials Forum may have some ideas to consider. Beware, they do not follow landscaping rules.

If you catch the gardening bug you can always plant other places on your property.

emmarene - We live in Southern Maine in zone 5. The more I've thought about it the more the location of that tree is growing on me, it was just very different than I originally had in mind. Once I have some sort of plan pulled together I'm going to head over to a few other forums to get some ideas on types of plants and trees to consider.

We also like the idea of a wider walkway, not too narrow. Our front entrance is fairly wide so we want a walkway that's proportionate.

You did not answer the grandiose question.

Thought I'd provide a quick update regarding our plan to hire a landscape designer. I'm not sure if that's going to plan out. For whatever reason I thought I'd be able to get a consultant for free or a very nominal cost and perhaps get something roughed out for not too much money. We reached out to three local landscape designers and have only heard back from two.

The first said he would do a 2 hour consultant to talk through ideas and suggestions for $250. He said we could negotiate a rate for 3 hours if desired. It sounded like it would be a good session where we would talk about layout, design, good construction notes and he'd offer suggestions to help develop a vision for our yard. However, there would be no notes, documents or anything like that submitted at the end. He said he doesn't do landscaping plans for less than $2,000.

The second said he also does 2 hour consultations but for $375. His consultations cover pretty much the same things as the first guy. He said his landscaping plans would range between $1,200 and $2,500.

All in all this is a lot more expensive than we were thinking it would be. I like the idea of walking the site to talk about ideas and suggestions. We could probably justify spending $150 or so on it, but the proposed fees seemed high. Heck, the second guy is literally 5 minutes down the road so it's not like drive time is an issue. I don't know, maybe we're just out of touch with how much this would cost.

In any case, now we know so I'm doing research and looking online for ideas. We'll likely work to develop a plan on our own and lean on kind folks on forums like these to provide us with ideas, suggestions and feedback.

Yardvaark - I'm curious to learn what software you're using to do your diagrams and renderings. It looks pretty slick!

Microsoft Paint. To draw decently with it you need touchscreen and stylus.

Wow, that's pretty good for using Microsoft paint! Nice!

I'm curious, do people have suggestions for what type of material to use for the walkway? There's so many options. We're not sure where to start!

I've been looking around on houzz for pictures and have saved a couple at this link: http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/47191746/thumbs/walkway

I'm leaning toward a natural red brick (non-herringbone pattern) or a cobblestone type. I'm wondering if red brick would work ok with the blue and gray of the house.

Personally, I prefer tried and true old school stuff: plain boring brick, pavers in the brick shape or half brick. There are so many classic patterns you can do that never go out of style. Prefer reds/greys, avoid browns. Like a contrast edge, for example, grey field with light grey edge. Always bring some samples home and view them from a distance with your house in the background. I don't care as much for the pavers that try to imitate cobblestone, but are overall very smooth with slightly rounded and depressed corners. Look too fake. While I think it's fine to use a light colored edge, use a darker color for the field. Light colored paving can be extra blinding.

Emmarene - I was reading through this thread again and I realized I didn't answer your question about what we consider grandiose. I guess another way to say it is that we'd something that's more than just a walkway with a couple of basic foundation plantings. We want a landscaping design that gives our house real curb appeal from the street but is also interesting to look at while sitting on the porch. Perhaps a combination of hardscaping (a few well placed rocks?), statuary, and plants/shrubs/trees of various heights and textures.

I'm working on developing a scale plan of the yard now and I'm going to start working up a couple concept sketches. I'm also leaning toward having one of the landscape designers come up for a consultation. In the end I figure it'll be short money compared to the what we'll have invested by the end.

My newest challenge that I just realized yesterday is that the cover to our septic tank is located about 4' in front of the stairs for the porch (and offset to the driveway side of the stairs). Ugh! Needless to say, I need to devise a clever way to build a walkway over the septic tank cover that allows us to remove a portion of the walkway to access the tank. That doesn't sound to practical so I'll probably relocate the cover for the septic tank off to the side. It'll be a paint but it'll probably be easier in the end.

Nothing is ever simple!

<i>"We want a landscaping design that gives our house real curb appeal from the street but is also interesting to look at while sitting on the porch."</i> ... (Anyone know how to create italics? My attempt didn't work!)

So far, with the information and pictures you've provided, you've focused on the view TO the house, not FROM it. The view from the porch is going to be the woods surrounding the front yard and what at its edge. Maybe after you get the scale plan going, you will add a series of overlapping, panning shots that show the view from the porch. (I would take them all from the gazebo.)

I thought that was what you meant by grandiose. I do not see how you can do a grandiose landscaping without a designer .Can you set this project aside and save money for it next year at this time? The lawn looks nice. I just keep thinking of the work and money that went in to that gazebo. It deserves something fabulous.

Don't worry about the septic cover. We had bushes and flowers planted over it. When it needed pumping, we just lift the bush or flowers and put them back afterward. No big deal!

Jane

emmarene - It's not so much the money that's the issue with the landscape designer, it's more of a value-based decision at this point. There's no way I can justify spending $1,500+ on a design (the lowest cost I've received) and I've had a hard time swallowing $250 for 2 hours of someones time (with nothing to show for it but a conversation). Ultimately I think we're going to move forward with the on-site consultation just to get some basic ideas and suggestions.

Yardvaark - you're right. We're currently focused on the view to the house from the driveway. To some degree I'm less concerned about the view of the walkway and landscaping around the porch/gazebo because I don't think it'll be terribly visible from the porch (at least while you're sitting down). This is because I think most of the view will be obscured by the railing. The view from the gazebo is dominated by the lawn and woodline which starts 30-50 away from the house. I'll take a few photos from the porch so you get a sense of what it's like. It's been rainy the last few days so it hasn't been good picture taking weather.

Hey all, I finally had some time to take a few pictures. I also decided to take a quick video from in the gazebo which can be viewed here: Video

The landscape designer will be coming by on Sunday. If there are any specific questions you think we should ask, or ideas we should mention during the consult, please share your thoughts.

Here are some additional pictures of the yard from the driveway. Looking forward to peoples thoughts.

The series of pictures does a nice job of conveying the lay of the land.

I'm a firm believer in finding someone with whom you have confidence in, and whose abilities as a designer you trust (because you have seen and admired their work.) Then, the chances are great that they will be able to deliver something nice and well suited for you with very little direction from you.

Some thoughts on things you might do ... If the property were mine, I know I'd be thinning out some of the saplings and thinner trees the nearer I got to the lawn. I like to see INTO the wooded area, not have it's edge seem like a wall. With some thinning, depth could be added to the space. Then, after weeds in the woods were killed, I'd have to have groundcover for a "floor," preferring green and lush as opposed to brown and crunchy (does not need to extend everywhere, but should be at least first twenty or thirty feet. The floor of the woods should extend out beyond the tree line and to where it is now lawn, by several feet. It doesn't look good when the trees are right smack at the EDGE of the "island" (as it is currently.) There could be shrubs and/or perennials in fairly large groups, depending on how things could be suited to light conditions ... kept low or used judiciously so as not to block too much view into woods. I like the big boulders, but not so much the little rock edging. The fat tree at center of last picture ... if in good condition could be featured more ... small trees cleared from near it. You'll have planting at the house and woods, but it would be good to keep the lawn corridor fairly open; it is necessary "white space." Doesn't preclude the planting of any specimens, though. Good luck and let us know how the meeting goes.

Hey everyone, I'm back! We met with the landscape designer who gave us some ideas for layout, materials and plantings (most of what he provided was non-evergreen perennials). We chewed on that for a while and had a local stone mason put in a walkway and a few small stone walls for us. Here's how things ended up:

We were having a hard time with the area along the driveway because we plow in the winter and I was worried about hitting anything we put there with the plow. We ended up installing a small stone wall set back a bit from the driveway and put a small sweep in it that roughly echoed the geometry of the gazebo. We threw a few large stones in the mix for interest but, honestly, they may be moved, laid down or removed all together. As we try to think about plantings we find they're very much driving what our options are which we find is making things difficult. In the end there are a few things that, in hindsight, we'd tweak with the walkway and wall layout but overall we're please with how it all came together.

So now we're onto plantings. Frankly this is the hardest part for us. We took a trip to to local nursery yesterday,(it was huge) were they
have acres of plants discounted for fall, many are 40% off. We walked
through, took photos of what we liked, but we're still struggling to
decide how everything will fit together. There are definitely some nice
rhododendrons we like and we'll probably grab. Worst case, if we don't
like them in this bed we can move them somewhere else.

Our goal is to get the 'bones' of the garden in this fall. However,
as we walked around the garden center and tried to figure out what we
should be considering it drove home the point that we didn't know how
many we needed because we don't know where everything is going.

We came back last night and tried doing a few layouts using the
layout plan below. The brown is our bed area and each square measures
2'x2'. I note that we're definitely going to widen out the bed around the Gazebo.

However, we're struggling. Around the gazebo we we're thinking of
placing a rhododendron at each corner with some other summer flowering plant
between them, something like a hydrangea or summersweet. We were
thinking of carrying the rhododendron across the front of the house but
we're worried it's going to become too repetitive. We're tried a few
different layouts but we're sort of stuck. We're leaning away from any
sort of small tree in the large flowerbed to the left since we're planting a large ornamental tree in our yard to the right of the house (where the small lilac bush is now). We also worry that putting a small tree in the bed would look odd with any sort of medium to large evergreen shrubs just 6-8 feet behind it? We
seem to think so. That said, we totally recognize this isn't our bailiwick. Currently, we've kinda dismissed small trees as
options. Maybe that's a mistake.

We've gone back and forth a hundred times but we're definitely
spinning our wheels. So, I'll put the question to those who have far
more practice - how would you approach laying out the bones of this garden? We just want to be sure we have a good mix of evergreens in here, we were thinking rhododendrons or some other flowering shrub, since leaves are only on the trees for about 6 months of the year here.

I liked the drawing Yardvaark drew for you earlier. I don't think anything tall is needed for your house. When you were out looking at plants did you see any low shrubs that you liked?

Those rocks on end are wrong. Too much 'energy'. They look contrived and out of place and will look odd once you plant also.

Next time you get a piece of machinery in, see if you can't use some of those rocks at the edge of the woods. The bigger, the better. Use them in natural outcropping groupings rather than individual specimens placed here and there.

Mike

Thanks. We tend to agree about the rocks. The guy doing the walkway wanted to give it a shot so we let him do his thing. They'll likely come out and be replaced with something more natural looking. I have access to a farm tractor so it really isn't a big deal.

We also like the sketch Yardvaark did but would like to have something in the garden that provides year-round interest/greenery. Winter is really long here in Maine so something that is greet all year would be nice. We've moved completely away from any sort of structured arrangement (e.g. a rhodo at each corner) in favor of a more natural/organic layout.

We've found several low-growing rhododendrons and dwarf conifers we'll likely end up planting. That will likely form the bones of our planting plan. From there we'll do low-growing perennials, bulbs and groundcover - nothing too tall.

Great to see an update! The walk looks very nice. There are several low-growing evergreen ground covers that you could use like microbiota decussata 'Celtic Pride', spreading junipers, vinca, or pachysandra.

still think the bed should sweep around front of sidewalk

ron