What resulted in few answers to your last post was probably not design-o-line's responses but the nature of your question. It sounds more or less as if you are looking for someone to design this for you. In fact, the forum functions more as a support for designing it yourself - there are exceptions, and sometimes a challenge will particularly interest one or two people. The forum is not meant to be a design service, but rather to discuss issues and problems, and often principles, of landscape design. If you have no issues, no complicated objectives that you can't see your way clear to, then very few people will see much scope for discussion. Finally, landscaping is done not only for places, but for people. Three consecutive owners of this house might have three completely different ideas of what the right landscape solution is. That will depend not only what their vision is, but also what their capability is to design a space, select plants, and build, tend, and maintain what they envision. And in fact, you've somewhat shared what your vision is, and if all that is left is the plant selection, you don't really need the forum anyway. What you need is spending time at your local nurseries seeing what is available and learning about it. And maybe, figuring out where you will put a fence to dissuade the deer :-) If you are not sure what you want, other landscaping resources besides this forum may be much better for you, such as books and magazines (buy used, the principles don't change) because they present the material in a logical and often seasonal format. Karin L

I have a similar problem with my front & side areas. My side area is almost identical to yours but my immediate problem area is the front. I havenÂt a clue what to plant in such a narrow space. The dimensions of my front beds are about 4ft x 12ft and IÂve heard that 4ft isnÂt much to work with, but IÂm not going for anything grandÂ.just something that will look nice from the street. The side bed is much longer, probably about 50ft, but its even more narrow than the front ones at a whopping 3ft 9 inches. Here are some pics to give everyone a better idea of what IÂm working withÂÂ.(***keeping my fingers crossed that erict will do the same with my pics as was done for yours***). LEFT OF STAIRS: this area faces south. I just finished amending the soil about a week ago RIGHT OF STAIRS: this area faces south as well. I started amending this side first and finished about a month ago. This pic was taken around twelve noon so the "corner" bush is still providing shade to a portion of the area. Its doesnt get full sun until about 3pm. LEFT SIDE OF HOUSE: this area faces west and is right next to my driveway. As you can see, I havent gotten around to amending the soil on this side. The area is shaded by the roof most of the day but it does get sun for about 2-3 hours (as the sun is on its way down). Even still, it gets very HOT over here, probably because of the pavement. Should I take that into consideration for plant selection? FULL FRONTAL: View of the house from the street

You are in "conversations." Will get much more feedback if you post in Home Decorating.

"We've had a few landscape designers come out to give us ideas, but most of them want to over-plant and turn the place into a forest." There is pressure in the industry to go in this direction and it comes from everywhere: the client, the boss, the contractors. Everybody wants to squeeze more plants in if they can. Part of this is impatience. Everyone wants quick or instant results. Part of it comes from the urge to sell product. And part of it comes from peer pressure; a designer may not feel like they're "doing enough" professionally if they aren't providing the fullest look. I felt this in my early days of work and it took a long time to resist. It's a nice looking, good sized house, but the walk to the front porch is seriously undersized relative to everything else. Unfortunately, it cheapens the look of everything else. The walk and the step should be the width (or nearly) of the opening between the porch posts. Due to the grade, it would probably require installing a small retaining wall. (There really ought to be a retaining wall there now. I can picture maintenance difficulty and erosion problems on the way.) If you ever decide to fix it, I would explore the idea of eliminating one step, by tilting the walk slightly upward as it approaches the porch. (The picture doesn't indicate if this is feasible.) IMO, there is not enough shown in the pictures to give much feedback on planting. From the overall front, it looks like you could use some large trees off the corner of the house, but neither of these areas can be seen well. Nor can the complete foundation planting area be seen. (We only see the central part from a hard angle.) My picture is not a comprehensive look, but is only addressing the walk issue.