Christie, It has been interesting following this thread as the real layout of your situation only became apparent when you added the additional late fall taken pictures. I think most of us were imagining a situation where the garage was set as an "L" to the rest of the house, rather than your situation. I'd also agree with several others here that pulling the walk away from the house, perhaps as a gentle curve, and adding a pull-out parking bay off the driveway would make the entry more gracious, but can understand that this is more than you want to take on at the moment. I would see no harm in wrapping new plantings to the outside of the existing walk, and maybe even adding a few small accent trees to the outside to make the approach more inviting. I would suggest keeping any new plantings right at the walk/driveway connection low and sweeping to not block sight of the actual entry. I can also see how the Burning bush Euonymus is probably a maintenance chore being squeezed between the house and walk, and should probably be moved to where it can have some room to grow, rather than being hedged. The main floor level set higher than the garage seems perfectly normal from this end of the country, where such a design is the norm, most often seen when houses are split level with another storey above the garage, so I had to stop and look at the photo again to see why this was a quandary for Laag. If I were to guess, I would say that you probably have forced air heating ducts located in this crawl space, connecting to the heater in the garage? In the long view, you might also consider remodeling the house to convert the garage space to more living area, and locating the garage in an orientation that is more pleasing visually. Here in California garages are often converted to living space, and sometimes not even replaced, but instead a carport might be added with a new orientation to the house. A larger porch or reconfigured enty could also be designed in future to make the entry more inviting, but I suppose this wouldn't be as popular in Missouri, as it is in California, where lots are so much smaller, and privacy and usable garden space are limited, making entries a logical place to enclose to create usable and more private garden space for entertaining outdoors. Low fencing to create a semi-private courtyard could be another approach to signal that this is the entry, and also make it more visually interesting.

daisyinga -- Paper bags! Duh...why didn't I think of that? That makes SO much sense! I am so glad I posted about this. I will DEFINITELY try that suggestion. Not to mention I still have a few rolls of that contractor-grade brown paper (y'know, the stuff they put down to walk on in your house, while they're doing finish work, so they don't scratch your floors) leftover from the renovation. That would be good too, it sounds like; and so easy to roll out! jmzms -- Thanks! :) I hope they do. Since I posted this and have gotten so many responses, I am starting to wonder if maybe the neighbors are, indeed, more "curious" than "disapproving" when they are doing the drive-bys. foxesearth -- I don't want it to be a big pile of rock...and I don't want it to be a southwest garden...I guess I don't really have any pictures (except in my mind) of how I want it to look. I guess I sort of jumped into it, when hubby and I finally decided that's what we wanted out there. At first, we just wanted something to not make the culvert look so...culvert-y...and also to keep the soil from eroding down into it. The rock garden idea sort of evolved from there. BTW, the pix I posted show more of the flagstone in the actual culvert part, and some of those are being removed in favor of more Tennessee Field Stone (the rock used throughout). There will probably still be some of the flag stone left (because it matches the path I'm building down through my foundation plantings), but it will be only in just the bottom of the culvert.

Thank you Yardvaark. Meditarranean refers to the climate, though I do also like Meditarranean gardens. English garden means some hedges, crucnchy paths, relaxed, busy with layers of flowers, as lush as we're able to make it, useful plants mixed between ornamentals, some trailing the ground, some climbing vertically, pops of color. My mum is English. The gardens she grew up with and the she kept as I grew up. Rough guides for us. Here are better photos. The yard is super bumpy from the the bobcat sinking into wet clay soil when we pulled up all the concrete. We've had to wait for the soil to dry. The bobcat is coming back to grade and smooth. This is the left side with the cinder block retaining wall. If we planted a hedge, it would go in front of the cinder blocks. If we build a moss rock wall, the wall would be built in front of the cinder blocks and would wrap over them. The fence is actually straight - the crookedness is from the panoramic scan. The fence with all lattice has no retaining wall right now. After it's graded, the area in front of the lattice will be a 3' wall as it's the high point of the yard and we're taking out 1' of dirt. It's only a 2' wall at the other end. Close up of the area we'd potentially plant vines. It's above the wall, in front of the fence. Plenty of weeds there before, bamboo and blackberries. You can see the side yard. That gate at the end gets replaced and moved back a good 10'. It was all concrete. The kitchen is by the gate, so we'll put herbs, small BBQ and a place to eat over there. I'm thinking pavers with green in between. The side yard passes 3 rooms, so we'll put arbors to create slightly different areas to look out of from each room, and to give a sense of passing through slightly different spaces to get to the backyard. This the same area from the other direction, facing the concrete garage wall at the back of the yard. If we go hedge, it would be planted right at the wall, where the dying cala lilies are, growing towards the fence for its depth. And a panoramic of the retaining wall side in two images, slightly warped from the panoramic scan. This shows the concrete wall that used to be the back of the garage. Please excuse the leftover tree bits. We did battle with a monstrous Blackwood Acacia that was crushing the neighbor's roof. No warping. This is the lumpy yard. Back of the yard. I'd love rose vines covering all of this. Something. Right side of the yard. The white wall is the downhill neighbor's garage, right on the property line. It was under 18" of dirt when we moved in. I excavated it and we're grading to this height to keep her garage wall exposed. The garden actually extends beyond this photo. There's about 5' width that runs 4'-10' along the side of the house, depending on where we move the fence. And finally, the existing back of the house. We're extending that room so the house is a square - where the green bin is will be house. That slider will be replaced with a 10' French sliding door. The small window will be replaced and moved. The metal siding will be gone. There will be a deck along the entire back of the house, about 5' deep. We're grading to the level of the house. The rickety fence on the left will be moved back and replaced.

While there are folks from other lands who regularly frequent the LD Forum, most of us are from the USA & correlate plants with the US Dept. of Agriculture hardiness zone maps & whether the location is eastern USA (moist) or western (dry.) Many plants grow in both locations so are known to people all over. If you had any idea what USA city Sydney is similar to, it would probably help greatly with any recommendations. I don't know if it grows where you are, but creeping fig, Ficus pumila, comes to mind as a plant that would grow on a wall for "softening" purposes. It is commonly used here on architectural structures and sheared so as to look manicured. If it is not sheared, it eventually develops a texture of "arms" that project outward from its base network so can easily become about 3' deep (thickness) if that feature is desired. A plant that broadly cascades and is used to drape over a wall are some of the Cotoneasters, which also have red berry interest at certain times of the year. Some low growing junipers are used drape over a wall, too. Anything viney can do this. Some ornamental grasses make a nice counterpoint to the cascading or draping plants. Grasses that are smaller (Muhly) could go on top and grasses that are larger (Miscanthus) could go at bottom.