Hi Homebound, replied to your post over in windows and followed your link over here. A lot of wonderful ideas here! Your original idea of what to do in the front sounds real good. I would keep the trees too, it is so rare to have two large trees nowadays. I cannot see where they are relative to the edge of your yard and sidewalk but if they are far enough to the middle of the yard, I would build a nice wood covered patio designed around the trees. In other words, when it is done, it will look like you trucked in the trees to complement the structure. A nice low picket fence or rod-iron or ranch style along the front marks a nice boundary and also provides security. If you need the grass for children, I would then plant low brush along fence line to prevent people from being able to just hop over. An alternative will be to convert some of the lawn into flower beds and install secluded seating areas. It is nice to have a place like this where you can just do as you please from scratch! Have fun!

I'll just add to Mel's instructions that your photo will show up when you hit "preview message." If it doesn't show up, then do not hit "submit message" - go back to Photobucket and make sure you have the right code. But you've done such a good job describing that it seems a shame to spoil that with pictures :-) so I'll try to suggest something useful from your OP. First, review some other threads on foundation planting - oh my lord, how many times have I said, does it really need foundation planting? Your porch might seem to call for screening of the underneath, but maybe you want to lattice it in or do something with just stone instead (or concrete blocks, like ours :-(...). The one thing I hate about porches, including my own, is that you can't seem to have one without also having a horrid low area underneath it that either looks ugly or, if closed in, is a claustrophobic cave. And that can be good critter habitat. That's another reason I prefer to pull plants away from the foundation if you have space, that the more secluded it is, the more attractive it is for habitat and the less you can get in there to chase critters out. So I have some other concepts that might transition better to the woodland: specimen plants here and there, or larger island beds with an assortment of plants. I actually find detached islands a bit random, so I tend to make mine isthmuses (perhaps more accurately peninsulas, but I like the former word better) extending from a border across the yard, but if you don't have borders, they'll have to be islands. KarinL

I never post here either, just stumbled by to ask a question. I agree with lee, I see cottage gardening all over the yard. Winding around the corners of the house as well as a flowing bed, not straight, under the windows, window boxes, wood or iron would be nice. You can decide the flowers depending on the colors you like as well as the plants. You will find a lot of inspiration just by peeking into these forums. If it were my house, I would plant with a lot of mass and color like reds, yellows and dark blues. I would put in a path of flag stone or bricks, I would do a white picket fence with an arch at the gate for a climbing climatis or rose, I love old benches so I would have one under the tree with a pot of flowers on it and bring in more garden art like old gates for trellis, old pails instead of flower pots. Like I said I see cottage all over the yard. You have good bones just depends on what YOU want to achieve.

Hey artemis; a great site you are fortunate to have! Thought I might share something on deer and landscaping in our neck of the woods. First your neighbors are a source of a wealth of information. If you're shy or don't care to go face to face with them just observe what is planted and doing well in their landscapes and gardens. It will tell you a great deal. If you're the gregarious type seek them out and talk to them, the local garden club even, or county ag, extension. Here in Tioga County NY z4 to z5; deer population is I think out of control. Plants that may have been possible to grow years past are not so easy now. You see plants and wonder, how did this fellow manage to grow this, it would never survive at my place. But they are mature plants that were started back in a time when the deer were less. Now they are mature specimens and mostly tall enough to be out of the reach of deer. It is very hard to tell what the deer will eat and seems to very site specific, to the point that things I can't keep the deer from eating, I see doing fine a half mile down the road! Yews are serious deer food on my place, anything lower than 5' is browsed, yet other homes in the woods here have them and they seem untouched. After 20 years trial and error the standbys, as far as the evergreens go, for relative deer resistance are juniper, spruce and pine and box. I often here junipers disparaged, I don't know why, beautiful to me if properly cared for. And tons to choose from, from ground hugging a few inches tall to our native juniper, the eastern red cedar, which is not a cedar at all but juniperus virginiana and can become a full sized and beautiful tree. Every shape and size in between. The same is true for the spruces and pines, of which there are hundreds to choose from, forms, sizes and colors. I keep experimenting and trying new things, lately inkberry; ilex glabra a supposedly deer resistant holly and larch; larix. Such a variety that a completely successful garden is possible with just these few species. Those are the species I can rely on to be deer resistant, as I said I keep experimenting, but with the mindset that I am taking a chance when planting and not to be surprised at seeing a well gnawed stump were a plant used to be. Here's a link to some of the conifers available for the landscape. http://www.iselinursery.com/