Just a few random thoughts:

Beautiful property and lovely house!

I would suggest that you get a plot plan and add in the plants you already have to the plan. (Your trees, depending on type, may provide root competition to plants nearby, so think about that and perhaps get your trees ID'd on the Name that Plant forum if needed as part of your planning of where and what to plant. Think about how you want folks to move around the yard, if there are any special areas you want (patio or other seating areas, pool, kids' play area) and if any need shade, water, etc. Then do sketches on copies of your plan to try out different ideas. I'd get an overall layout that you like that meets your general needs, and then you can work on specific areas separately as you'd like. Do hardscape (paths, steps, walls, etc) before plantings.

It sounds from your list like you have a lot of different types of plants on the front wall of the house that you've planted. (Is the planting shown in the last two photos your planting? I wasn't sure.) Since it's a substantial building and is viewed from a distance as folks approach the house (if I am understanding the approach from the parking area), I would suggest that you may want to consider having fewer kinds plants in larger masses to be more effective. For instance, you might want one ground cover across the whole distance or a large group of 3-5 of the same kind of Hydrangea. The depth of the bed and the distance that the walkway is from the house also will look best if in proportion to the house, so consider making that bed deeper and having more plants, though not necessarily more different types of plants.

Some thoughts on your pathway redo. Pathways are often designed to not feel or be wide enough for practical use or aesthetics. Ideally a path should accommodate two folks side by side, and the scale of your landscape really requires a wide path IMO. Choose a surface that will be easy to clear of snow and won't be slick when wet. Perhaps differentiating the path width and plantings may help mark for visitors which way goes to the main entry vs the kitchen door. Or even having some type of a gate (with plantings or some low-key fencing) will make that entry look less inviting to visitors.

You may also want some plants that are midway between the height of those along the front of the house and the tall trees and house to give some transitions. I am thinking of one of the understory trees such as a dogwoods, but perhaps your Japanese maple will fill that role as it grows.

You said, "I was thinking about lining with boxwoods, maybe larger ones on other side of the paths and the driveway and shorter variety everywhere else but wanted other ideas." I am not sure if I am interpreting what you said correctly, but I wouldn't put my tallest plants near the paths because it can feel overwhelming to walk alongside taller plantings. You want clear sight lines from the parking area along the path to the house entrance; IMO this isn't an application where you want to have mysteries opening up as you walk. You want your visitors to clearly see how they should be approaching the house.

One specific evergreen that may work better than boxwood in your shade - mountain laurel/Kalmia latifolia should do fine as an evergreen that is good in half-day or bright shade. It will grow OK with more shade, but be more sparse and not bloom as well. I would also be cautious about using large quantities of boxwood in this area due to one pest (boxwood psyllids) which can make them look unsightly and boxwood blight, a fungal disease which can do severe damage.

Yardvaark, that's not a second house - it's an ell - a wing off the house. This style of architecture dates from farming days in this snowy area of the country where in order to get out to the barn to milk the cows in bad weather there was a series of connected buildings: "big house, little house, back house, barn" as the saying goes. Quite a common style in the snowy, early settled areas of NY and New England. My house has an ell (when we bought it there was still a milk storage room in the end closest to where the barn had been, though this hasn't been an active dairy farm since WWII.)

I wouldn't limb up to the eaves but I would limb up the trees so the branches are above head height even when weighed down with snow.

Definitely start with a plot plan. You may want to post it here to help explain the property. If I understand it correctly, getting people to go from the parking area to the front door is not going to be an easy fix. To the point where you may want to consider adding a circle drive to the front specifically for guests. Friends of my daughter literally had signs directing people to the desired door, which is another possibility.

Completely and totally forget lining the parking area with anything evergreen. One small snowplow can do a great deal of damage that can take years to outgrow. Another local piece of advice is to have a soil test done, specifically a pH test. Within 20 miles of my house, the native pH ranges from about 4.2 to 8.2. It matters.

My last house had a similar driveway-to-house set up. It was unclear to guests which sidewalk went to the front door, and most ultimately made the wrong choice. I hated it. And we had plantings around the parking area which DID suffer from snow plowing/piling issues. I removed a lot of them.

We finally sold that house. Problem solved. :) Sorry, I'm no help.

Kiera, Places for snow removal are important as others have mentioned. (Can you tell Yardvaark doesn't have to deal with that?) I have a broad strip of grass (perhaps 6'-10' as the drive curves away from it) between the drive and my nearest garden bed, and the snow still ends up piled over some of the perennials at the front of the bed and shrubs are out of the question since they would be damaged. This is the case whether you plow or snowblow as the snow has to get piled somewhere. I am always amazed by how much snow can accumulate in "good" snow years.

MY thirty-some years living in the winter conditions of the upper Midwest has taught me that while there must be places for snow, it does not mean one can have only grass next to paved areas.

I think, NYC, you'll need to focus on the issue of traffic circulation and solving that problem first. You need to show pictures that make clear the relationship of the parking area to the front entrance (which would also clarify the prior mystery of the two seemingly unrelated houses faces.) You could begin by taking slightly overlapping pictures while the camera pivots and stays in one position, showing this area:

If you could, another scene that would be useful would be from the parking area, roughly at its center. Capture the whole house from left to right, where the parking area joins the walk and where the walk disappears around the front corner of the house. Include a little extra space beyond all these items within the picture. All of this to be taken from the single vantage point. Should be able to get it in two overlapping shots. Maybe three if house is wide.

I disagree with removing the lower tree branches around the house. It is those branches that frame, soften and add character to a historic house. This would be a fun property to explore with a metal detector looking for the old well and out buildings and bottle/refuse dumps.

This property was once a working farm. To design 'perfection' into the landscape would be a mistake. Set the landscaping free, returning to the common shrubs of days past planted in several groupings. Not much is needed. Placement is critical to the design.

There should also be remnants of the old circulation system. The driveway would have gone in front of the house, to the stables/carriage house, and somewhere to turn around. There may have been a separate drive to the barn. It isn't obvious how the current driveway relates to that. It is probably a truncated part of it.

The driveway seems long and meandering for just two acres. Do you want the house to be visible from the street, revealed enroute, or at the end? Jackson Downing, America's first and arguably greatest landscape architect, famously designed the driveway to his home in Newburgh, NY to offer glimpses of the house along the way until a final dramatic reveal. It requires strategic groupings of plantings up to the task.

kitasei, I will look up Jackson Downing's work. Thank you. It's a great question too...since this is a weekend home and our escape from NYC, we probably crave more privacy from our neighbors and the street than maybe a full time resident. So the reveal (well, as it is for our house, which is hardly grand) is really for guests as they walk to the front of the home. Everybody has been using the kitchen door because it's the closest and most direct path. I'm finalizing the contract on a kitchen renovation and redoing the path so hopefully will change that!

But...I'm not sure if the driveway qualifies as either long or meandering. It is maybe 60 ft long from the far corner of the property to the parking lot of sorts next to the house with room for a small side yard, as you can see from the photos below. I'm working on a plot plan so hopefully that will add some insight and show the flow of the property.

I really don't think simply redoing to path is going to get you very far. People pull into the parking area and see DOOR. It is probably going to take a fair amount of screening or something to discourage them from heading towards DOOR. Unless you are in the habit of giving formal parties, most people won't bother even looking for a front door.

My house has a side loading garage. So when you pull into the driveway, there is a path that leads to the front of the house, and the front door, and another path on the other side that heads to the back of the house and the back door. Because the back path has steps, and is unfriendly to snowblowers, I don't clear it during the winter. Children, cats and in-laws all express issues with this policy, and a determined preference for the back door no matter what. I have tried explaining that there is no reason they shouldn't be using the front door, but the only group I've made any progress with is the cats.

Getting the cats to obey is quite an accomplishment!! I'm guessing there will definitely be people who insist on using the kitchen door (as you mentioned, kids, inlaws)...I'm staring the planning now because I feel like it needs to be very well thought out to be effective but appear subtle. Removing the path from the parking area and putting in plantings that prevent people from walking across the grass is a start. Somebody mentioned a sign, which if I could pull off without looking cheesy, maybe "Welcome" with an arrow?, I may try.

Would it make any sense at all to build a large pergola along the side of the house over the intended path to the front door?

[https://www.houzz.com/photos/concord-poolhouse-traditional-patio-boston-phvw-vp~22326023[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/concord-poolhouse-traditional-patio-boston-phvw-vp~22326023)

Will you be showing the whole side of house, including space between parking and house, from approximately where the car is parked?

A pergola would require removing one if not two beautiful old trees so we're not considering it at this point but it would make for a beautiful walkway!

Yardvaark, I'll be able to take those photos next weekend. It's not our full time residence. I found these older pictures that I took before installing the foundation bed and an arbor toward the back of this side of the house. The first was taken from the edge of the parking area. Also including a picture of that bed in it's infancy, in case that helps at all. The arbor is the gate to the bluestone patio that wraps around to the other side of the ell.

I've also included a picture of the corner of the house. My idea is to remove the bluestone path arm that leads from the parking area to the kitchen table and only have it connect along the house. See below for the worst sketch on houzz.

As carpentry projects go, wood arbors are one of the more easy-to-do. I would not use a too small, prefab arbor. Build a nice one that has a 5' or 6' wide opening and plenty of clearance above the head.

To be sure, the existing walk layout invites someone to use the first door they come to because people always want to walk the shortest distance and to go where they see a likely destination. That's two strikes against using the front door. The walk rebuild is only partial. It's a good idea to get people moving in the right direction before they get too close to the wrong door.

The scheme you sketched, NYC, has the potential to work, but your walk is too close to the house to make for nice landscaping. Be sure to work out whatever scheme on a measured-to-scale plan, getting rid of all the bugs, before getting bids or doing any actual work.

Yardvaark- Wow! Thank you! Would you then suggest removing the smaller arbor with the clematis that I currently have as one entry to my patio area? Or any way they could they compliment one another?

The Japanese Maple that I planted has similar dimensions to the green tree you included...cannot wait for it to grow and fill in that space.

Yes, with my sketch, it only leaves a six foot foundation bed, which is what I also have on the front of the house so would rely on a bed on the outside of the path for interest, incorporating the maple. My other concern for this solution is that the angle of the path from the front to to the parking area might be awkward.

May I ask which software you use?

Yardvark, may I ask how this is supposed to direct people away from the backdoor? It seems to me that it simply replaces one obvious destination (the back door) with an even more obvious destination (the arbor).

Time for some theory talk :-)

@NYC, I'm not making any value judgement about the arbor you have at your patio, or suggesting that you remove it. I'm merely saying that if you're going to make a real one, you must custom make it.

The drawing is MS Paint, using a stylus on a touchscreen laptop.

@Mad gallica ... I will try to explain again.

First, a sign as a backup -- an arrow -- leaves no mystery about where one is being directed. But by the nature of concealing the path to the back door with plantings and a barrier of sorts, the message being sent is that one is approaching protected space which specifies a higher degree of privacy than open space. If the visual cues aren't enough, with a gate one has the option of "locking" it. I would not call the arbor a "destination" because one knows one is not yet arriving at the house. But it is creating additional privacy for the original back door by adding an outdoor hall or foyer. In the drawing I try not to make the arbor look too bushy because I'm trying to convey a variety of information and don't want it to look too cluttered. In real life, I think the arbor sides would be more concealed such that the back door of the house might not even be visible (from the viewpoint we are looking at in the picture) so that the decision would have already been made to head for the front of the house before the door is seen. It happens to be the case that I more or less abandoned the left side of the drawing -- just throwing in a bush to make things look a little better. But if there was some groundcover at the left of the walk approaching the arbor, that would add another element of privacy, suggesting one might need an invitation before entering.

At the risk of being pretentious, the sign could point to the backdoor and say "deliveries" or "service"...

Sorry if this is repetitive. That is a long thread!

You have a woods environment and topography. I wouldn't add anything to beneath the trees and would let them shine on their own.

Anything overly fussy or manicured won't suit this site. I also wouldn't add much that will take away from the view of the facade of the house. No foundation shrubbery. Low growing juniper along both sides of asphalt. A mass planting of spring flowering bulbs: scilla, daffodils, grape hyacinths, and columbine - denser along the edges of the drive, graduating to sparse inbetween the trees.

I disagree with the formal plantings shown above. I don't think you need to add anymore trees unless you have a favorite that you'd like to see more of. btw a truly stunning tree that would blend and accent well in your garden is blue atlas cedar. Think Downton Abbey and that beautiful tree that is shown on the left side of the screen. That spare landscaping would also work well with this home. I think the worst thing to do would be a scattering of different types of plants or a strict scheme of regularly spaced plantings.

Can you start the approach path from the corner of the parking path that is closest to the door you want folks to use and make the path as straight a line as possible to that door? Then you could make the path to the kitchen door narrower and coming off the main path at something close to a 90 degree angle and then bend again to head toward the kitchen door. Currently the Y path doesn't give a visitor a main path, but two paths of relatively equal 'weight'. Having a main path that is direct, with the kitchen path being visually smaller and not direct, might be enough. It will mean that you will have a less direct path to the door you use most often, however, which is most likely what led to the current configuration.

I have no advice to offer but I do miss living in this valley. Such a beautiful area...and it looks as though you have a beautiful home away from the city. Enjoy!

If you don't know about them already, the Open Garden Days sponsored by the National Garden Conservancy are a wonderful way to see great examples of landscaping in your area. They include both private and public gardens.

PureMichigan (btw, I was born and raised in the Detroit area), I just researched the blue atlas cedar that you mentioned and it's stunning. Sadly it looks like we're just out of it's hardiness zone but I've put a call into my favorite nursery to see if she's had an luck with it. Will also research juniper to see if any can handle the shade around the drive. It could work well on the stretch from the street to the parking area.

NHBabs, Yes, I've concluded the same. After thinking through the beautiful arbor idea, I've realized we need the natural light from the door and I don't want to do anything to compromise it. If we don't have snow up there this weekend, I'm going to play around with how straight I can make a clearly dominant path to the corner of the driveway and then different ways to have a secondary kitchen path intersect with it. I think Yardvaark is right that my sketch above that shows it very close to the house isn't quite right but I have enough space to try a few other plans.

I can't thank everybody enough for their time and attention to my dilemma!

I am sensing by your comments, NYC, that you are not quite getting the purpose of the sketch I offered, which is to inspire a direction, not to prescribe a specific, etched-in-stone solution. The concept is: visually obscuring the back door some from a distance, and using minimal signage, combined with a modified walk layout (which you are invited to improve upon,) in order to direct traffic to the front of the house. Once people are on the way, they will continue to the front door. The concept would be refined by working out all of the details of how it is to be done in PLAN VIEW, not in a perspective view picture. The measured plan view lets you know exactly how much distance you have from one object to the next, in order that you can place things properly. Regarding proximity of arbor to back door and the issue of impeding light entering the house, it looks to me that you have roughly 40 or so feet of space between the house and the parking area with which to "play." By the look of the sketch, I think I've plopped the arbor somewhere between 12' and 16' clearance from the house. In the plan view that you create in order to organize future work, you could place the arbor 20' from the house, if you thought that improved upon its placement. So I can't really grasp why you'd use light entering the house as an obstacle. The arbor goes where you put it. Where I put it, it doesn't even look like an impediment to light to me. Any nearby trees have a much greater chance of affecting light entering the house.

In another, separate, picture, it looks like you have much less distance between the parking and house. One, or possibly both picture views, may be misleading as to what the real truth is. That's, again, why the actual landscape-work-to-done must be laid out in a measured-to-scale, PLAN VIEW.

Regarding "framing" -- edging -- the drive or walk with shrubs and/or groundcover, I do not see why you think this is necessary or desirable. Well grown and tended grass, in the places where there is sufficient light, seems preferable. In the areas where there is not sufficient light, a low groundcover would be best ... not as an "edging" per se to the paved areas, but as a bed of groundcover that works on its own accord. If it happens to abut the pavement, that is not a problem.

I do understand the purpose of the sketch and I very much understand that you weren't recommending any set in stone plans. The arbor would have to be the right height, distance to not have the top of the door awkwardly peeping out from any view, year round. When I played around with my sketches, that had me getting the arbor closer to the house than seemed right. We also sit on the porch with coffee and look out into the woods, the pond. I need to get back upstate before I can finish my plot plan so I know that you don't have all of the necessary perspectives. I like the idea of creating a visibility barrier of some sorts- and I appreciate that insight that you've given me- and I'm playing around with that in my plan.

I don't like the way the blacktop looks where it meets the grass, even when it was in great shape before getting trampled by many delivery trucks this summer. It's harsh and feels like it belongs on the school yard. I'd like to make it more welcoming, also as part of my hope often some of the harsh edges on what I consider to the the least attractive part of my exterior.

"I don't like the way the blacktop looks where it meets the grass..." "I'd like to make it more welcoming..."

Surrounding it by shrubs and groundcover (unless very low) is not going to make the area more welcoming, but will have instead a potentially unpleasant confining effect. And if vehicles are destroying grass, the likelihood that they will decimate other plantings (shrubs & groundcover) is even greater. In your second photo, I agree completely that the appearance is "schoolyard." But it's because that's what your entire yard is. There's no interesting landscaping going on at the house or anywhere else in that picture. It's a sea of grass and tree trunks. A flush hardscape border to the parking and drive would dress it up without destroying the larger picture. If the rest of the yard was attended to, especially near the house, it would be welcoming.

vstavay, I've sent your picture to my husband and sister and all we can say is that's stunning! I'd love to come home to that! It also really invites people to the front door. Thank you.

Wow yardvaark- I have no idea why I feel compelled to respond to such a harsh, condescending comment but I've just started working on the yard last year- have put in a huge vegetable garden on the other side there are beautiful historic stone walls surrounding the property and we have every kind of wildlife in the area come to drink from our pond. Obviously I'm on this site because I want to improve the look of my house. I appreciate the effort you've put into commenting but I'd appreciate it even more if you'd withhold any further nasty comments. World doesn't that that right now...I definitely don't.

IMHO, the issue with the parking area is that it doesn't look like it relates to anything else. Houses with multiple teenagers with equally multiple cars often sprout areas that resemble this - the cars have to go somewhere, but it isn't going to be a permanent condition so it isn't planned. The biggest difference is that those are rarely paved.

If it has ever crossed your mind that this might become your permanent residence, give some thought to where a garage might go. If nothing else, the thought experiment might help with thinking about where cars should be going and why.

Yardvaark's comments are neither nasty nor condescending, but they are direct--as you were in your first sentence: "...specifically, the ugly blacktop." You have a lovely house and property that has been invaded by an alien parking area. If it remains in that configuration, it will always detract from your property.

No one doubts or criticizes the work you have put in, and everyone is committed to providing feedback that will help. Including Yardvaarck, who has provided so much feedback over the years that I'm surprised he has anything left to give.

Shall we all take a step back, then have another go at it?

mad_gallica- spot on. they raised three boys through college while living in that house and while the original plans showed that they meant to add a garage down the road, I think this just worked for them.

I'll say thank you one more time to everybody. I have so much to go on from here and despite living in New York City for 15 years, I think I'm just a bit too thin skinned for this forum! Best of luck!

I can't imagine, NYC, what you interpreted as either harsh or nasty and can unequivocally say that nothing I said was intended that way. If it's because I described your yard in less than flattering terms it's because I'm agreeing with you that it has problems and needs work. Isn't that why you came here? If we were all going to pretend that there was nothing that needed doing, there would be no purpose to this forum. Analyzing what's wrong is the first important part of design. Don't take it so hard. I try to be truthful with everyone.