I agree with catkim that a "zen" Japanese-style would be great for this house's landscaping, since the architecture of the house has a slightly Asian look as a result of the broad peaks of the roofs, and the double-framed, almost shoji-style windows (actual Japanese shoji screens would have interior frames). Right now the landscape has too many straight, geometric lines to work with this house. The flat line of the lawn and the box-shaped shrubs give the house a somewhat forbidding feeling, and make the less-than-perfect lawn look pretty blah. The straight lines also make the lawn imperfections all the more apparent. The first thing I would do would be to get rid of the box-shaped shrubs against the garage wall, and replace them with shrubs that have a more open, gently arching habit. I would select shrubs that are a lighter green for that spot (the dark shrubs that are there now make the house look too dark). Then I would convert a generous area of your lawn into a landscaped garden area. Keep the shrubs low so as not to block the nice window shapes too much, and to let as much natural light into your house as possible. For the landscaped area, I would definitely use a curving edge that will soften the geometric lines of the house, and make all the trapazoid shapes of the roofs look attractive. The garage door is almost the single largest element of the front of this house. I would keep the garage doors the dark brown to help them look less obvious, but I would plant an area of shrubs and perennials along the border of your lawn and driveway to further play down the huge expanse of garage. This will visually emphasize the house, instead of the garage. The stone aspect of the house gives you a wonderful built-in design element to play up in the landscaping. In your photo, it looks like some of the stone has a slightly reddish color, so that may be a good place to start for plant colors. I would use some plants that echo and play off the colors of the stone to pull the whole landscape together. I would add some ornamental rocks and stones to a landscape area in front of the house. I would select the color for your entry door after you have added some landscape plants. You may be leaning toward the deep bright blue now to sort of liven up the landscape, but after you get some nice-looking plants in there, you may decide the blue is "too much". That particular color blue may actually clash with a lot of plants. You may want to echo the look of the double-framed windows in the entry door as well. You could get this look just with paint, or you could look into a custom-made door with a "shoji look" adapted to a Western door frame size, depending on your budget. I took the liberty of working with your photo to throw a little Japanese-style landscaping from the Portland Japanese garden in there, plus a more Asian-style door. It's just to get a general idea of a a possible look...of course, you will need to find shrubs and plants that work in your hardiness zone, soil, and sunlight levels. You'll also need to leave some room for your walkway! Below is a website that's a nice introduction to the Japanese garden look: Here is a link that might be useful: Portland Japanese garden

drtygrl, I don't think the Endless Summer hydrangeas come in tree form. I questioned the designer about the underplanting and she said the peonies come up and bloom before the hydrangeas leaf out, but I don't know if this is the case. This might imply the hydrangeas get cut back every winter as Endless Summer will bloom on new wood. With the tall perennials behind the lacecaps, they would be for viewing from the street, not the house. That's the way I interpreted it but I agree with you it wouldn't work if she thought we would see them from the house. (Well, we might see some of the flower tops to the extent the tower is up higher than the planting bed and if we trim the lacecaps lower.) I am totally fine with planting a nice display for the neighbors, although the perennial planting seems unplanned. inkognito, During the designer's second visit I discussed the view from the house several times. Even when invited she declined to walk through the house and look through the windows. That really left an impression, but not a positive one. After I said I want low plants in front of the front bay windows I am blown away she recommended rhododendrons that will grow very tall, although not quickly. Do you have any thoughts about plants that might work here? Azalea "Hilda Niblett" looks interesting as does Rhododendron "My Mary" although the Rhodie might be too tall and better against the front wall between the tower and front bay windows. I'll stay in touch and let you know how this develops. After this week I'll be traveling the next couple of weeks so not much will be happening after this week. Billy

Your house is really cute and there is a lot of potential to really make it stand out! I would definitely tear out those bushes (they are just kind of random) and put in three of the same shrub. There are so many choices out there. Just think about whether you want evergreen, flowering and consider the light conditions mainly. My first thought, and it seems a lot of others thought this too, is to get some nice planters to put on each side of the ledges. If that grass doesn't work out, then a ground cover would be low maintenance. Another idea would be to add some small evergreen shrubs to outline the perimeter of your new grassy area.

Hi all, for some reason I cannot access my old username threedogsmom so I am back to update you on what I have done so far. After moving in an living there for a bit, there is more sun than originally thought in the front yard, so I have planted a variety of evergreens, small trees, and shrubs with a few of the hostas I brought along sprinkled in. Once I have the mulch down (in next 2 weeks) I will post a few pics. I went with the first mock-up drawing in the post above, using an undulating edge for the front yard bed to break up the linear front of the house. We sourced rocks on our property to make the edge with, so it appears like a natural extension of the rock retaining wall. The color scheme overall focuses on burgundy, blue and yellow foliage/needles, with some greens mixed in there as well. Flowering shrubs are in the reddish-magenta color. For small trees, I added a Wolf Eyes dogwood, a Saratoga gingko, a Black Dragon Cryptomeria, and a dwarf columnar blue spruce, as well as a Rising Sun Redbud across the driveway on the other side. In the front entry nook to the left, I filled in with a dwarf Baby Lace japanese maple, 3 blue star junipers, and 5 golden sedges to set the color scheme. Across the walkway, there are 2 June hostas, 3 dwarf barberries, 3 Liberty hostas, Mr Bowling Ball and Fire Chief arborvitae, Amber moon astilbe, a magenta pink hydrangea, Lemon Beauty lonicera, 3 lemon thread mops, a dwarf golden hinoki cypress, purple leaf sand cherry, 2 red drift roses, 2 blue rug junipers to hang over the rock wall, daylilies, 3 dwarf Buzz buddleias interspersed with variegated liriope, golden barberry, 2 Beyond Blue fescue clumps and a Standing Ovation grass. So your eye will see repetition of the red/burgundy, then yellows, then blues as you move around the garden bed. I think it will mature very nicely as time goes on and should offer nice color and structure all year long while still being low maintenance. Pics to follow in a few weeks - working on the mulching this weekend!!