Hi guys, Thank you for the quick responses. I think I need to clarify a bit. The garden bed as it stands right now has been this way for a year and was the result of us digging out/getting rid of most of it and transplanting a few items. Upon going into our local nursery about a year ago, a young gentlemen advised us on a couple other things we could get so that's how we got the azaleas (three) and astilbe and camelia. Today (a year or so later), it still looks really incomplete. So my questions specifically are: 1. Should I go back to the nursery with my updated pictures to ask what else is missing or do I just have to wait for all the things to bloom and mature? Is it an 'acceptable' state as it is? 2. Could you name a couple of low maintenance things that we could easily add by ourselves? 3. It's the heat of Summer, is now even the right time to do this sort of thing or should I hold off until a better time (and if so, when?) Thanks so much in advance.

Before you start planting, I would widen the walkway, which currently is quite narrow. If you can't do that, at least give it a generous landing at the base of the front portico, as wide as the pillars, to make the front approach feel less pinched. If it were mine, I would then get rid of all the grass between the wider walkway and the house to make it a deeper bed with groundcover under the shrubs for ease of maintenance, to give more space between the building and the plants so they don't end up looking so tight against the building as your remaining shrub, and so you can have more plants for a longer season of interest. You may want something else evergreen, but a different color or texture, to contrast with the Encores in the winter. This can be another shrub and/or your groundcover.

Many of the features built into houses of this period were expressly for the purpose of saving costs ... minimal trim, minimal or non-existent roof overhang, smaller windows, narrow walks & drives, etc. A by-product of this cost-saving strategy was lack of charm. Even though shutters were non-functional, using them was one way people figured out to add a little interest and charm to an otherwise relatively plain looking piece of architecture. It was usually enough to help, if not entirely counteract, the blank wall effect. If a house style begs for clean, austere lines I could understand the goal to remove shutters. But many times the house is begging for more interest! I can't get on with this shutter-removal fad that seems predicated primarily on the fact of present day shutters being non-functional or appearing that way. I agree, they should be right-sized -- as any trim should be. But I can't see that removing them is really helping the look in many cases. I don't think it is here.

I wasn't clear in my original post - I may need to start again. We have a variety of fruit trees and bushes, berries and a large vegetable garden in the back. I'm not anti garden maintenance - I just tend to neglect the front yard because it never seems to look good no matter what I do (and I tend to prioritize puttering in the back with all the food producing stuff. We have run out of back yard space for fruit trees and at the same time I would like to add some taller trees/bushes at the front of our yard to create a bit of privacy as we are replacing some mirrored windows at the front and everyone walking by will have a full view into our front room. I was thinking if we had a nice looking garden along the road that we could then squeeze in a few more fruit trees in the front yard - but I would also like the yard to look nice. I am horrible with design and I'm hoping to get some ideas for a garden area with some height along the front of the yard, as well as some opinions on if I can get away with adding fruit trees along the driveway, walkway and front of the house (right side), or if this would just look strange. I'm not married to the look of the photo I posted above, I just want something that would look nice and create a bit of privacy.