Hi All - Yup, I'm still here. I just love looking at the pictures and savoring all the ideas... and I don't want to miss anything, so I keep coming back! :) I'm traveling right now though, so I've had much more limited access to my computer. As for the plant hardiness zone, I am in southern NH and it is generally considered 5-6 around here (NH does have zones down to 3, but those are pretty far north and probably higher in elevation too). Dogwoods should do nicely around here and there should be plenty to pick from at the garden centers. Can't wait 'til I get home so I can see what I can get started on. I'll probably have to start with planning the plantings since the screen porch is currently the workshop for the power tools needed to fix the interior issues. Thanks for the links and for the advice for copying the photos. I think I will get started on that tonight! I'm sure many others on the forum would agree that your work here should be immortalized forever... not deleted after a few months. :) Thanks! -Paula

Do you like gardening/maintaining landscapes.... or is it a chore? If the former, and if it was my place Id leave the lower grassy portion near water as is for now EXCEPT take down the fence (what purpose is it serving) and I would want to come up with a jazzier /more colorful design for that blah border planting in front of the stone wall (to left of stairs in pic #2 (what are the shrubs that are in there now?). I would put in some sort of grouping of 3 of something taller / more vertical at the very left of this border (tall enough to balance out the weight of that hydrangea). If its to the side it wont block out that much view and besides you could go quite tall maybe even up to 15 ft without blocking any of the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd floor windows. (I assume the bottom level is a walk out basement?) I would bump out that border to be wider, with taller flowering shrubs in back and perennials in front); Front - is that literally the road in the pic or is it your driveway? The grass area is too small to read as a lawn or anything useful and tends to turn into a weed patch - id put in a bunch of low growing, easy to grow shrubs like spirea which can be use dmore as a ground cover (instead of the usual row or border.) I was going to say replacegrass with stone work or pavers with some sort of stone sculptural piece and/or windowboxes/planters as Nancy suggests but if that's the road and not your driveway I don't want to confuse the drivers by having paving right up to your house - there would need to be some sort of clear border between the paving of the road and your house!!! (for obvious reasons - all you need is one tired driver to wreak havoc)

I am not someone who does mockups on line, but you can do them yourself, either in your computer by putting photos of your house into MS Paint and using a stylus to draw on them or go old school (that would be how I do design) and print out a bunch of images on regular paper (not photo paper), get some colored pencils, and start drawing right on the pictures. Or even do collage, printing and cutting out images of plants you might want to use and then pasting them on to the photos of your house. To start with, think about overall masses to fill the space: color of flowers and foliage you like, height, plant texture (big fat leaves, tiny leaves, tall skinny leaves, etc) before you start looking at specific plants. You can do this stage with construction paper cutouts on a photo. I tend to do design putting in non-specific plants such as ”smaller than 20’ conifer with gold foliage” or “fine-textured evergreen flowering groundcover” and then go see what I can find in local nurseries that fits my needs. Later in the design process when you have some specific plant ideas, you want a plan view as well to be sure that you have given each plant the space it needs. I use 1/4” graph paper and typically a scale of something line 1”=1’. Look up the particular width of a plant on a reliable website such as the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Plant Finder and draw a circle that size on your plan. You might have a couple of plants within the same space such as a low-growing perennial under a small tree. Be aware that often nursery and plant breeders give info on a plant’s size at 5 years, so give some extra room if your size estimates are from nurseries. If you don’t want to do the design yourself, what you get for mockups here may or may not suit your style, growing conditions, or amount of work desired. The folks that do them here have varying levels of skill in design and plant knowledge for your area. You may find someone does a mock-up you love, but you will still need to create the plan view in order to know exactly how and what to plant. Additional alternatives are designs by nurseries (who then typically require you to buy the plants from them), or an independent landscape designer who will draw a design and let you plant it, or even finding a garden coach who will walk the garden with you and make general suggestions and perhaps even a few rough sketches to help you get some ideas and direction of what is appropriate to your architecture, personal style, and interest in active gardening. Beyond the mechanics of getting plans and mockups, you want to start collections of photos of plants and plantings that you find appealing. Get books from your public library, look at Houzz photos for your area and save ones you like to folders for front and back yards you create on your My Houzz page, use Google images for gardens in your area and save or bookmark ones you like, take pictures of gardens you like as you drive around on a daily basis (so handy having phone cameras!), visit nurseries with demo gardens and local botanical gardens. Spend particular time in neighborhoods with houses like yours to develop a feel for what looks good to you with your style of architecture. While you are at it, look at color choices for siding which may present you with some options that you like but wouldn’t have otherwise considered. Get a feel for what you like. This is a step that is necessary regardless of who plans your garden so your garden can match what you find appealing. If there are specific plants you want to ID, use the Name that Plant forum here on Houzz. [https://www.houzz.com/discussions/name-that-plant-dsbr0-bd~t_29966[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/name-that-plant-dsbr0-bd~t_29966-dsbr0-bd~t_29966) Photos of the whole plant along with closer photos of branches, and flowers or seeds/fruit will help get good IDs. You want to think about the direction the house faces and whether you will have summer irrigation available. For instance, I think that along with evergreens (broad leafed like Rhododendrons and needled conifers) you might want to plant some Hydrageas. There are reblooming big leaf hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla and H. serrata) for long bloom with large flowers that are visible from a distance, but they need consistent moisture (but not soggy conditions) and like shade from the afternoon sun, so don’t do well with a southern or western exposure. Some of the smaller panicled hydrangeas are appropriately sized for foundation plantings like Bobo, Little Quickfire, or Little Lime, and they like more sun and are more tolerant of average soil moisture. So you would want to choose your plants based on long season appeal, size, and growing conditions. Think about how much interest, time, and energy you have to devote to the garden. A perennial garden typically takes more care than a shrub bed like you currently have and many perennials disappear in winter. Consider using evergreen perennials for groundcover under shrubs. My sugggestion for the big leaf maple leaves is a compost pile. You can go fancy, but I just use three 6’ wide rings of welded wire fencing, 3’-4’ high and tucked into an out of the way spot. Then, you can either rake the leaves onto a tarp and drag it over to the compost in batches or use the lawn mower and a bagger which will chop them so that they rot faster and take up less space. Alternatively, in our yard, the leaves get run over several times with the lawn mower and the resulting small pieces (1” or less) just sift down into the grass and add to the soil quality over time. Some folks use the lawnmower-chopped leaves right away as mulch in the garden. They are a consistent color and texture and will help keep soil moisture even and improve soil quality like any mulch, but it’s free. I leave my leaves in the compost for a year or two and then add finished compost to the garden, just spreading it around the plants. Some folks here (me included) have even resorted to bringing other folks leaves home . . . ;>)

If it were me (not a pro), I’d hold off until you were sure. Have you seen that combination? Can you try to find a landscape designer, as it’s important to consider drainage, shape/wider for example and a broader perspective that could eventually include landscaping. Now is the time. I think your concept may be patchy and costly and instead I‘d opt for a timeless gravel drive. Suggest removing the bushes across front of house so you have more options to add a walkway and/or border, pathway, etc. Stage two could be landscaping along drive and you would have the initial design plan available.