You can mix materials just fine, especially if you have brick elsewhere in your environment and if you choose the right material for the job it will look right. The root systems on the evergreens need not be the big burden you are thinking. You can just cut those shrubs off at the trunk and most probably won't re-sprout from the base - the odd one might, then you just keep cutting off any new growth and it will eventually die. I can't tell if you have any real bad suckering shrubs in there; those you may have to chase the roots with a shovel for a bit. But mostly you can just leave the roots to rot for a while before taking on the sidewalk; it may take some time to think about what walk you want. Maybe the entry will already look good without all that shrubbery. I'd be more concerned about the roots of the tree. I can't really tell how much room you've got, but the new sidewalk you have in mind will almost undoubtedly interfere with those roots. That's not good for the tree, nor, in the long run, for the sidewalk. I would do the shrub removal first and then look at what you've got. Update this thread with new pictures at that stage if you want more input. KarinL

I am far from an expert in this area, but since I recently purchased a new home and I am still trying to sell my old home I might be able to add something. The best advice is probably to spend as little as you can on your landscape. Spending $200 to spruce up your yard might be worthwhile, but $1,000+ is a waste. Somebody will purchase your home because of its location, the number of bedrooms, the layout, the number of baths, the neighborhood, and similar features. They will not purchase your home for the landscape. So why spend any money on your landscape? The reason is that potential buyers want the impression that they are purchasing a house that has been loved and maintained. If they notice a dozen problems before they even get to the front door, then they will look for other problems. Another reason is the real estate buzz word "curb appeal". The front of your house will be the fist thing shoppers see when they drive by or search on the Internet. Looking at the pictures, I agree that you should make some improvements to your landscape (provided that the inside of the house is in good shape). I would likely not remove anything that was not dead or in real bad shape. Prune back the overgrown shrubs, get some grass in there, get rid of the weeds, spread some mulch and straighten up. Removing the lower limbs from the spruce would open up the front of your house. You are not going to be able to create a dream landscape on a tight budget in just a few weeks, so do not try. - Brent

You've done a ton of work! It looks great. What a transformation. I agree with Keesha that the left corner needs more oomph to complement your lovely stone entry. Is that one of your weigelas planted there? If so, that will eventually fill that space nicely, but a climber would be a good temporary addition. Another suggestion would be to use wider shutters, if the budget allows. If you don't like all the hostas in front, you might try moving some of them under the evergreen. The continuity throughout the two beds would be an added bonus. My hostas are planted with Coral bells and it looks nice. Also Brunnera goes nicely with hosta. Mine tolerant relatively dry conditions once established. I would really focus on the two beds you want to join. You will be amazed how much your new plantings will grow in the next year or two and then you can divide and move things around as you please. In the meantime, you'll have built the structure and bones of your garden. I know it's hard to be patient. I'm living in a new to me house too, and I want everything done now! But I'm just blown away by how much my plantings from last year have taken off. It's giving me all new ideas about where to move things to and shape new beds. One thing I am glad I did was to visit the nursery often last year. I was kicking myself at the time for all those impulsive purchases of lovely blooming things I really didn't need. But now, I'm patting myself on the back. It's making for a lovely succession of bloom. As one thing fades, another is coming in to its glory. So that worked well. Even though I ignored all the common wisdom about having a plan and limiting my choices. :-) Enjoy creating your garden - you're off to a lovely start!

When trimming, keep in mind that this is a matched set of “bookends,” so they should be exact, mirror image duplicates of each other as much as possible. I would think of the trimming project as a challenge … as if you were involved in a manufacturing process making a machine project on a lathe or something along those lines. It would not be at all detrimental to use a tape measure to double check dimensions for matching throughout the process. I would rough out the shapes of both before fine tuning either. The place to begin is standing back well away from them trying to envision what they are to become. If the shrub needs to be moved a little left, right or forward, this is the time to notice it and account for the adjustments you’ll need to make in the cutting. It really barely matters where the plant roots are located. If you the shrub to be 4” to the right, “move” it there with the cutting process. It’s important to envision the finished product before cutting because there is a substantial part of them that won’t get any cutting at all. If you just charged up on them and started hacking away, there’s a good chance you’d cut some wrong parts off. Since the pair of shrubs are matched, the first cuts to make should determine the height. (To match the pair, follow a line on the siding of the house as a guide. Don’t measure from the ground.) Keep in mind that you do NOT want to cut at the place where you envision the limits of the finished product to be (the red line in picture.) There are three reasons for this. As soon as you finish cutting the plant it’s going to grow and if you cut it at the finished height, in a short time it will grow too large. The second reason is because, even though you tried hard to make it a perfect shape, it’s not going to end up as perfect as you’d hoped for. Later, when you need to trim and try to perfect it again, you will want to be cutting only in the newer, softer, easier-to-cut foliage, rather than in the hard, sticky, woody portion. If you don’t cut a little smaller in the first place, you’ll probably end up where the next cutting has to dip somewhere into the woody portion of the plant again. This is a royal pain. If you make the plant a little smaller to begin with, it gives you a “cushion” against having this happen. In general, I find that people have a strong resistance to cutting the plant smaller (the blue line in the picture.) But do yourself a favor and get over this. If you mistakenly cut this plant to a stub, in two years you’d barely remember your error because it would be pretty large again. In cutting it just 6” less than you want it to be, in two months you’ll barely remember or notice that you did that. The third reason you want to cut the plant a little smaller than the “finished product size” is because the more foliage you remove from the top portion of the plant, the greater it is that you expose the bottom portion (the part that is undercut and desperately needs to grow) to more light and an improved chance of quicker growth. Between the yellow line (which represents the ground plane) in the picture and the shrub, there is nothing at all to cut … until you get higher up to the blue line. At this cavity at the lower portion of the shrubs, all the foliage will be left untouched so it can continue to grow as quickly as possible. The goal is to keep the upper portions of the shrub trimmed so that it shades the lower portions the least as possible. Even if you want the shrubs to be larger than what I'm showing, for now you should trim them as I'm showing because you're in a corrective phase trying to regain the lost lower foliage. In your second-to-last picture, it shows how a subordinate, adjacent shrub has encroached on the Yew, which is clearly the more important shrub. The lesser shrub should be trimmed such that this doesn't happen.