It strikes me as not taking advantage of what you have to place the house a mere 40' from the road. I would add another 10' at least, but more likely another 20' or 30' or more since, after all, the space is there for your taking and the potential to create a much improved setting for the house correlates with it.

You would end up with two areas that are maintained very differently. The roughly 1/2 acre or less house and yard would require maintenance similar to any house and yard located in the suburbs. The remaining roughly five-acre pine forest would be essentially unmaintained outside of any particular projects that you wish to undertake, such as cutting & maintaining a trail through it.

You will want to remove the dead lower limbs from the trees where they are highly visible from the yard, on account of their being unsightly. It will cause no damage to the pines and can be done anytime. It would be pointless to remove them from the remaining 5 acres as you would not see them. You'd also want to remove fallen branches within view of the house on account of their being unsightly.

The way you keep weeds at bay is to first kill them by digging or pulling their roots out of the ground, covering them from light, smothering them with mulch, or killing them with herbicide. Then, areas must be planted solid, paved, heavily mulched or have a building on it in order to keep weeds out. Lower growing plants will begin to grow where sunlight reaches the soil below the trees, but at a distance from the house and yard it will be inconsequential. in the yard itself, you'll have lawn, landscape bed and perhaps some trees other than pines. While mulch alone is sometimes used in landscape beds, it is inferior to beds that are planted solidly with shrubs and low growing plants, especially groundcovers for areas of much size. It is inferior because mulch deteriorates in appearance and must be top dressed. Neither does mulch alone hold soil well from erosion. Planted areas are also mulched at the beginning but plants end up covering the mulch, so no more is needed.

It would be necessary before building starts to create a drainage plan for the yard that surrounds the house (not the outlying 5 acres) so that you don't end up with drainage problems. Soil MUST slope away from every exterior wall of the house, ideally for at least 10'. From that point it must be carried to where it can run harmlessly into the surrounding land or road. Be sure to factor in grading for any outdoor areas, such as a patio at the back of the house.

A "heads up" I would give to any home builder is to pay special attention to the front walk that leads to the home entrance. As a rule, these walks are of inferior design for the vast majority (upwards of 95%) of new homes. They are usually too small and too close to the building, killing opportunities for even decent landscaping around the home. If your walk is not designed by an experienced landscape designer or architect, I'd return here with a site plan and hash it out yourself with help from the Landscape Design Forum.

@Yardvaark - Thank you for your reply. I have one question about lawn/grass. Can you grow lawn in soil that has been primarily pine forest? I have heard that the soil is too acidic, and requires constant amendment and testing to make sure the ph remains favourable or your grass just keeps dying. My concern with the grass was that it would just keep dying on us due to soil ph, and we would have to replace it again and again. Or once you clear away the pines from the house/yard area and correct the ph of your yard's soil, does that ph hold fairly steady?

Thanks.

Start your thinking process by locating property down the road that is untouched by a builder's machinery, only landscaped by Mother Nature. What you see growing naturally on that property will help you understand future maintenance should you purchase the acreage under consideration. Yes, you can grow grass on that mountain. Local Extension office should be helpful.

It appears that this mountain top may have been 'clear cut' recently. If purchased be certain to remove any pines around the house footprint that could cause future problems.

A final thought. These coming weekends are prime foliage viewing days. May I suggest that you pack a large picnic and plan to spend considerable daylight hours on the property. These prime mountain fall viewing roads are heavily traveled and also swarm with large groups of motorcyclists roaring about. A sound not enjoyed by everyone.

Thanks, nandina (8b). This community is actually private, so the only people driving the roads are those who live there. That's a good idea about looking at other uncleared lots, though. I will definitely do that. You are right about the clearcutting. The mountain used to be used for logging purposes about a decade or so ago, but no longer.

How close you want the house to the road depends on rules, traffic, and neighbors. Too much of a front yard is a waste. Too little and you sacrifice beauty, privacy, and safety.

Zone the property for different levels of care.

I once lived in the middle of a pine plantation. The soil was sandy, shady and acid. I didn't have a lawn and did not want one. I liked that I did not always have to worry about lawn maintenance. I grew colorful wildflowers around my front steps and that was about all I needed to keep me happy. I wouldn't remove trees, they a re holding in the soil, lord knows what was done on the property before the trees were planted. It could even be an old strip mine, can't tell from the photos. But you can thin them. Poison ivy is probably going to be your biggest problem.

You might want the check out Firewise . The site is great for showing you how to properly manage a timbered property. If you need to control weeds and underbrush, small flock of American Blackbelly sheep will work great and provide meat as well. My profile pic is our original flock ram Axel, Barbados BlackbellyxMouflon cross.

I'd put the house further back. Roads can get more traffic over time. I know of so many neighborhoods with quiet, backcountry roads that turned out, over time, to be much-used escapes from bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway. You can put trees in your front yard, if you like.

I think the edge of woods is really lovely. I'd plan to put in a layer of shortish, forest edge trees like Redbud and native dogwoods, underplant with tall shrubs like native rhodos, and then shorter shrubs, like mountain laurel. You'd get a beautiful landscape that would be more natural and more natural-looking than that young pine monoculture. It should be a landscape that would be plant-it-and-forget it. You'd have to water well in year one and then during severe droughts, but otherwise, you'd have the beauty and no work. Put them in randomly, so it looks natural, don't line them up in a row.

If your tree canopy is dense, you won't have much of a problem with scrubby undergrowth. We have a heavily wooded lot in Maine, with birch and hemlock and we've never had to clear undergrowth. It's also remarkably rocky, which might help.