I love the look of the house. I think the ideal answer would combine laag's tree on the side, Jan44's blue mounds and duluth's suggestion to paint the garage to match the house. I think this situation is a good illustration of the importance of color, in combination with laag's point about hiding things in plain view. The white of the garage draws your eyes as white normally does. But that's not where you want your eyes to go, so painting it to match the house will help take that distraction away. Adding the tree on the side would further reduce the garage's ability to draw your eyes. The blue mounds in the plantings would be nice harmony in color and shape with the house features. I would also keep any other plantings to a minimum and with minimal other introduced color so the final plantings are a quiet tan and blue that focuses all the attention on the attractive house. If the front door was a different color, you might need to have a different color for the plantings, so the OP might want to give some thought to whether the door color is what they want for the future. I like the current door color.

"I thought of getting a Laceleaf Maple, but the price for a small one astounded me ($89!)" I suspect that might've been one of the 'dissectum' Japanese maples, in which case it was likely a cultivar produced to grafting a branch to the root of another plant, and these can be more labor and time intensive to produce than some people realize, although it provides a plant with reliable characteristics (such as color and form) when grown under good conditions. From what I've seen quite a few Bradfords have branches break off, but survive. Take a close look at some big ones and you may see old damage. That may or may not bother you. You mentioned Colorado Spruce; if you want one that grows slowly & doesn't get nearly as large (or at least would take a very long time to get huge), I believe the 'Baby Blue Eyes' cultivar might be worth looking into. Not all Japanese maples grow at the same rate; if you've got a Bloodgood, I'm surprised it only grew from under a foot to 7' tall & 5' wide in 11 years! Wow. I don't know their growth rate, but I was thinking it's not usually that slow. Gotta wonder how your soil is, whether you mulch & how much sunlight & water it gets. There are a number of different kinds of upright Japanese maple, and some might eventually meet your needs. Are you familiar with Shantung Maple? It's supposed to be hardy. Might look quite nice. Would it work in your area? Richard.

In California you should assume the fungus Armillaria is in the soil. It is activated with moisture at a time when the soil temperatures are high. The fungus feeds on roots, dead or alive. When the brown mushrooms are noticed at the point where the trunk enters the soil, the roots are damaged beyond saving the tree. After the tree falls over and is made into firewood the fungus continues to live on, feeding on the dead roots still in the ground. We lose black oaks in our forest every year from Armillaria even though there is no summer water, only a drainage problem. Al

As others have experienced, my recently-purchased, 19th century farmhouse has a stone foundation in need of repair. I'm chatty, so grab a snack and sit back for some light reading. ;) Of the 3 basement rooms, the east room is not parged, and the floor gets wet after it rains. The thing is, we accidentally discovered the south walls are hollow. Yes. Hollow. So far, we've repaired an approx. 3' x 4' area of hollow, interior foundation wall that we could easily access. We knew there'd be more. (I agree that parging only serves to hide problems.) Sure, the mortar is nothing more than sand, in much of the south walls and the west corners. But when we started pulling away the loose stones, we found huge voids within the foundation. Using stones and cement/mortar, we repaired the voids as best we could. We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves, for finding the exterior sources of the water problems, correcting them, and then fixing the foundation voids.) (When we first moved-in, I spent about 100 hrs in the one, non-parged room in the basement, brushing the surface and pointing every little gap.) We also painstakingly went around the above-ground exterior foundation, and filled-in any obvious gaps, and redirected downspouts and other water purge pipes. (As renovations continue, a new roof and gutters will be installed appropriately.) But here's what happened (and why my urgency to get this solidified ASAP)... I like my music and movies. I'm very hard on subwoofers. The last one was 400W, and began deteriorating a few months ago. I lived without one due to the numerous renovation projects going on in the house. (We've lightened the house substantially, I suspect, by removing all the heavy, heavy plaster & lathe - double layers, in places - to lightweight drywall, as we reconfigured everything.) So, as a kind of treat, once the home theatre was able to be set-up again, my husband bought a bigger, better, badder subwoofer for me. I now have 650W of goodness at my disposal. Yippee! But, as always in life, there are pros and cons to everything. The thing is, the west basement room has yet to be addressed, and sits directly under the new sub. After extended play at delicious levels, I went to the basement...just to see if there were any repercussions (pardon the pun). Frighteningly, there was some evidence of surface degradation. i.e. There was some sand/mortar, parge, and some small rocks on the floor. As best I can tell, the thumping bass dislodged them (although I can't be 100% sure, as I didn't check first, and we had similar results elsewhere, when doing the main floor flooring). Again, here's the thing... I took my super-skinny pointing tool and poked various spots on the interior foundation wall under the subwoofer. When it easily went all the way in, I tried a longer length of stiff electrical wiring. It went in a foot, with ease. A little freaked out, I went back to the middle basement room, where we'd repaired part of the wall. The untouched areas are parged, so it's not easy to find gaps to test. Then, just under the repaired area, I tried a space just big enough for the pointing tool, and it wet all the way in. Our exterior, south wall of the house is covered in ivy. A neighbour informed us that, a few years ago, the (brick) wall collapsed inward. The repairs are only evident once the ivy dies away in winter. However, it doesn't appear the foundation collapsed, or was affected by the collapse. But with that parge and paint, who knows? Soooooo... As I get down and dirty with more urgency in wire brushing and re-pointing, any expert thoughts, recommendations, pro tips? (And no...the foundation needs to be strong enough to handle the subwoofer, as that bad boy's not going anywhere.) ;) Until now, I'd always kind of felt a little invincible, in that the house has faced countless storms and even some minor earthquakes over its century+ life. There even used to be a railroad across our front lawn, not 75' from the front porch. Surely, a little truck rumbling, thunderstorm, or occasional subwoofer use couldn't hurt it. Now, I'm nervous. :O