Are you looking for marginal plants or lillies or both? I have some blue flag iris and some lillies I can trade, right now, and in a month or so I will have lots of other stuff.

Thanks, Peter and Ig. The PM is already spreading to the acorn and butternut. I soaker hose long-watered yesterday and I pulled the gray, dead PM leaves off and put them into the trash bin. Someone I met suggested fish emulsion feed. Of course, I cannot now locate that small green bottle of stinky liquid. The soil drains well. Weedy area and some Heritage raspberries or maybe they are wild blackberries are sprouting up here and there. It's a constant challenge. I'm tempted to experiment on the two front zucchini plants: immunox on one and "copper spray" on another. (What sort of copper spray? Any drawbacks?). The butternut squash up hill at my neighbor's isn't particularly full, but doesn't have any noticeable PW either. It rained last night and this morning, so that should help. With no rain or moisture, how could any Epsoma or 10-10-10 break down to get to the plants? Question: if overhead watering contributes to Powdery Mildew, PM, then what about rainfall? Is rainfall any different than overhead watering (assuming minimal back spash of soil onto leaves)?

If it were me and I was going to redo the front walk I would just do poured concrete in an oval shape to mirror the bed around the trees in front of the house. That's the least maintenance. Yes, remove the yews, they should not be trimmed in an unnatural box shape for a home as natural looking as yours. Don't know what the tree is next to the yew shrubs, maybe blue atlas cedar or blue spruce? Either way, it is going to get big so you may want to move it now while you still can. It's a "specimen tree" meant to be viewed from afar, so I'd put it in the back yard, "afar" from the house where I could take it in while sitting on the back patio or looking out the back window. You could take out the front set of birches with two trunks, that is the one that blocks the view the most. I wouldn't do that, but I am a tree hugger. Where the yews and that blue green tree are, I would put some flowering trees or shrubs that would remain small, and maybe something that smells nice to greet me as I walked up to the front door. You don't say your zone, but it appears to be a 4 season area so I'd put in some rugosa roses (but that's just me) maybe mixed with hydrangeas. That's what I have in my front entrance way. Roses can get buggy, so if you want something even less maintenance, shrubby cinquefoil and low growing spirea are just about as easy peasy as it gets. "Knock out" roses don't smell as great as a rugosa but are more foolproof, depending on your zone. BTW, there are small evergreens you could put next to your house. There are some small junipers that would fit the bill, or a bird's nest blue spruce (which I don't particularly care for but some folks love). But like I said, not sure what that is by the yew hedge, it may be a dwarf for all I know but it doesn't look like it from my casual glance.

I love the front porch! The brick walk is nice. With the tulips (I think that's what they are), I'd go with 1 or 2 colors/types and do them in more concentrated masses. You want them sited in a way where they fade into the background and something else (like a repeat blooming daylilly) takes over once they bloom. It's rare that I see juniper as a ground cover that actually looks good so I'd be excited to blow that out of there.