Thank you. I will try tomorrow to get better pictures. The house is across the drive from the bed, but I will attempt to go across the street and get a picture of both. What I have posted above is the "house side" of the bed. Tomorrow when I go across the street I will try and get the bed and house in one photo, it will be the "street side" of the bed. I hope I am making sense. Thanks again!

Going across the street sound like too far away. If you drew a single straight imaginary line through the center of the house and bed, couldn't you stand back from that line, in the driveway, and pan the camera from left to right showing the bed and the house ... kind of as if you were photographing the imaginary line? Obviously, I can't yet know what's there in order to direct you as to how to capture it. Maybe you would want to show it as described above, and then walk to the other side of the line and capture it from that (opposite) viewpoint ...? One way or the other, you'll eventually show enough! The important thing is that pictures span an entire scene (showing reference objects like house) and not be partial, unrelated snippets of scenes, which are not helpful in explaining how the property fits together.

HOW MUCH privacy are you hoping to create? This would make a difference in what you do.

In order to get an idea of what creating this privacy will look like from the street, please go across the street (somewhere in the vicinity of the red line I've placed in the photo) and take a picture of your complete house and some space at each side. Back up until you can fit it all in. If you can't back up far enough capture it in slightly overlapping photos (... not overlapping by 80% ... more like 15%.)

I am trying to "diffuse" the view some. As you can see from the pictures, I can see directly into my neighbors back yard (up the hill, across the street) and my neighbor can see directly into my front yard. When they sit on the patio they can see EVERYTHING in my yard and they quite enjoy telling me all about it. They were quite tickled when we removed the brush that was there previously. Before we cleared it out, the house was not visible from the street at all. I don't want quite that much privacy. Before it looked like an extension of the wooded lot. I just would prefer as it grows in it makes it a bit more difficult to see directly into the yard if this makes sense.

Maybe I am missing it, but I do not see the red line you have added in the photo.

I can't back up far enough to get a picture of the full house, but I will try the overlap technique and this time with much fewer pictures.

Thank you! I really do appreciate your help.

No red line! Some dufus forgot to upload the picture. I will upload it into the previous post ... and speak to the help. You did fine without it, but still could use less overlap. There was enough overlap in the two end pictures that I didn't need the center one.

If you want to use plants to create a filtered view, as opposed to completely obscuring it, you could do this with some small, multi-trunk trees with lots of trunks. These would be some type of large shrub. Like a crape. (Speaking of which you should not be pruning them off at thigh height every year. They'll never gain stature. They're supposed to be trees so trimming them off at 9' height would make more sense.) It would probably take a couple of rows. It would be good to cover the ground with a solid groundcover ... NOT mulch and "edging" plants stretched out and placed every 3' along the border. This doesn't look good. Whatever other plants you use, they should be in some kind of blocks or groups that makes sense relative to the overall scheme.

Tulips would only work here if you are reserving a spot for them at the nose of the bed where they will get sun for the majority of the day. They're not really considered permanent plants as they diminish over time and need to be replenished.

Thank you this makes a lot of sense. So the two "baby" crapes I have in the bed already could be moved to the location you painted and I should add more? Would you suggest removing the holly that is currently at the end of the bed?

There was some ground cover (vinca maybe) that was growing in the bed, but it was VERY neglected and out of control. We could consider replanting it. It may actually come back on it's own in time.

Yes, I was hoping to reserve a spot for the tulips and not have them alone as they are now. I do really appreciate your help and I really like the idea of the crapes!

You could use crapes. Before you use them, solidify your vision of how you want it to look in the end. How will you maintain the crapes to keep that look going? Will it be too much work? Or will you let them grow unpruned and will they become too large. (There are different size crapes) Figure these things out before buying plants. As maybe another plant will work even better. (I'm not saying it will. I'm just saying to think this through before latching onto an idea before it is completely resolved.)

I don't know what kind of vinca you had, but V. major get's quite crazy. I've never used it for anything because it's too weedy looking for my taste. I would do something purposeful and not something that just happened to happen. Look around your town. Are there any patches of goodlooking groundcover growing in similar situations? What might it be?

I will definitely take some time to think this over. We are in no major rush and don't want to make a huge mistake. I will also drive around and take note of some good ground cover "in action".

I "think" it was vinca minor, but had been untouched in years. At least that is what our neighbor thought. But based on the weedy look, it could very well have been V. major. It sure was a major headache to cut back. We found statues and animals in it when we first cut it back! It was well over my ankles in height and grew all over the bricks that we had no idea there were even bricks when we bought the house. We just thought it was a hill. It grew down into a HUGE patch of ivy at the base.

So ground cover is a bit scary at this point. :-) But I have seen it done very well and look very nice. We will choose carefully.

As for the crapes, I will research those also. We don't mind the work, but honestly would prefer not to have a lot of ongoing work for this one bed, as we have quite a sizable back yard as well. We have a beautiful rather large crape back there, but whatever kind it is it would be too large for the front bed in question.

I really appreciate your input and you have given us some good things to think through.

Do I understand you to say that you already have English ivy at the base of the hill? If you already have it, why would you want to introduce another groundcover? ... instead of just managing one?

No. We had English Ivy. It was removed as well. It was also overgrown and rotting the base of our tree and an arborist recommend that we remove it to save the tree. I think at one time everything was very pretty and well maintained, but as the previous owners aged they were no longer able to keep things in check.

At this current time we have no ground cover.

English ivy does not rot the base of a tree. I suggest your arborist was one of the many professionals that fear and loathe English ivy and have no interest in learning how to manage it either. Therefore, they just spread the fear and hate. Too bad, as it's a good and manageable plant. I say this based on owning two in-town properties with about 1/4 acre each, of E.I., and took care of it for many years. I cannot say enough good about it in spite of all the negativity and hatred. (I feel certain some of that will come now.)

Well that is good information to know! We had to cut down two trees that were over a 100 feet tall due to the base of the trees being rotted. one had a hole in it that almost our entire rake could easily slide into. The other the roots just crumbled when touched. And he blamed it on the ivy that was surrounding it. So when he said the ivy in the front had begin to rot the other tree, I believed it. Now I know better. I don't really care for ivy, but had I known it was not the source of the rot, I would have grown to get along with it and maintained it. Ours was certainly out of control and needed attention. To cut it back would have been a heck of a lot easier than removing decades of growth!

My philosophy is to learn to manage plants in spite of that others cant or won't. Find out what plant serve your purpose and employ them.

Geraniums are a good ground cover. The perennial forum could help you choose one for your location.