Landscape Design ideas needed

6 years ago

I'm looking for landscape design ideas for the front of my house. The plantings that I have right now are not very attractive (and they require a lot of trimming throughout the growing season - they have just been trimmed in these photos so look especially bad!). We will soon be installing a sidewalk which should run from the front door to the driveway. The front of the house from the right side of the photo to the driveway is 46'. It's 14' from the front stoop to the right side of the house (as you look at it in these photos), and it's 26' from the stoop to the driveway. Any ideas are greatly appreciated!

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Yardvaark

6 years ago

I see my asking about the sidewalk is proof positive that I am not a very good READER. :-)

To be completely honest, there are not any shrubs there that I would retain. They have the fault of being poorly placed or are too large for the space allotted. One exception might be the large shrub at the far right corner of house, if it was turned into a small, multi-trunk tree. It's too close, but do-able if absolute perfection isn't required.

It's a big front. Be sure to bring the walk out far enough from the house in order to allow for good depth to the foundation planting beds. 8-10'. If you want some help with the layout of it, post a base PLAN ("aerial" view) that shows: house footprint, driveway, stoop & steps (all to scale.) Do not shade anything in or add plants. If you want to make the base plan useful to you for landscaping, you should also show the tree trunk locations and the back of curb. If you want, you can add those things later. Due to the grade, the walk will need a few steps. Instead of putting them at one location or stretching them uniformly through the length of the walk, it would probably work out better to place them in pairs at uniform intervals. Personally, I would only make 16" treads (not 12") as this makes using them so much better. And cheekwalls are always better to have where there are steps, though these are often left off for cost savings (which add to lawn maintenance though.)

The tree is very much in need of being limbed up. It's going to get a lot bigger and the lower foliage does not need to be coming in front of your house like that. It looks menacing for the foundation plantings.

You'll need to learn to trim shrubs when you get some new ones. All the existing ones are very poorly trimmed, which utterly destroys their look. Instead of doing so many individual shrubs (as it is now) I'd do much larger shrubs under each pair of windows, greatly simplifying the overall landscape look. However, the fewer things will have much more oomph. The shape of the shrubs would be important so, again ... proper trimming.

(The center of house, porch & apron look way out of whack but that's mostly due to the fact the camera changed position when taking the two pictures. In the future, when taking pictures of a single scene, keep the same camera position and just pivot it while taking slightly overlapping pictures.)

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Comments (6)

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Yardvaark
6 years ago
Is there not going to be a walk to the front porch?
peggymullen
Original Author
6 years ago
Yes - we will be installing a sidewalk from the front stoop to the driveway.
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emmarene9
6 years ago
Your stoop is much to small. Since you are adding a walk I think it is a good time to widen the stoop and bring it more forward. I suspect there is a portico in your future so don't limit that possibility now.
peggymullen thanked emmarene9
PRO
Yardvaark
6 years ago
This house could benefit greatly from having a roof or awning over the stoop.
l pinkmountain
6 years ago
Get a good book on pruning, I recommend anything by Cass Turnbull, including her "Guide to Pruning" and "Complete Guide to Landscape Design, Renovation and Maintenance." That will get you started on how to re-landscape the new walkway, stoop, etc.

Landscape Design ideas needed

Yardvaark

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Landscape Design ideas needed

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