Need to see more of the space in front of the house, like all the way out to the street. A picture from across the other side of the street showing all of the front lawn to the street curb plus the house up to at least part of the roof.

If the space between the house and curb is small, this will be a challenge. In that case, you will need to decide how much of the house you want in view from the street. If you want the house to be seen from the bottom of the windows and up, then the front foliage must be short, probably low lying globular plants; If you wish for more privacy, then a hedge trimmed to show the top half of the windows as seen from the street.

If you put some “simple” shutters up on the four windows and did them in that brown to match the porch and painted the visible peaks in the brown also it would take away the starkness. This would make the wall with one window not seem so tall. The cement could be painted white or carry the latticework over to that side and maybe start some climbing plants like an ivy or honeysuckle. Simple shutters as in diy plain wooden ones instead of expensive louvred types.

I was going to suggest shutters, too. We have a two story brick house at the end of our street........when we first moved here (22 years ago), every time we passed that house I would say, "needs some shutters". The house sold and the first thing the new neighbors did was to put shutters up. It looks beautiful now.

What is to the left with the two tiny windows? If that's a garage and you don't need the windows, I would plant a beautiful holly. They grow pretty tall and will balance all that bare space.

Thanks, all. I will do my best at getting better pictures. Our garage is across the "street" (pretty much a barely one-lane road) - we're on a dead end so it'll be hard to get far enough away but I'll do my best.. The other side of the house is a lake. Today is a pretty miserable rainy day but I'll try to get better pictures. And thanks again!

I love your front porch!

I'd have a rocking chair, some bright red geraniums in urns and some contrasting plants hanging over the railing

You even have room for a hanging porch swing at the ends.....beautiful!

I love a front porch too. I would put two rocking chairs with a table between and love the idea of flowers on the rails. They make flower boxes (plastic) that straddle the railing and you could put some really colorful flowers in them.

I wouldn't do shutters.

Landscaping would definitely improve the approach.

How about some rocking chairs? Urns flanking the doorway?

I think that shutters are a great suggestion as they help to accentuate the windows, but I would also consider adding some additional trim to them to beef them up a bit. Then I’d start adding color. Paint the porch railings & posts white, add some hanging baskets, a couple of rockers and/or a bench swing. I would a coordinating colors to paint the shutters and the door, navy maybe or a pretty teal.

I’m not a gardener but we have a similar issue in front of our porch and a suggestion I got from folks years ago was to add bed of a layered bed of flowering plants in front of the porch.

The faucets may be an eye sore to you, but honestly, I wouldn’t have noticed them if you hadn’t said anything. If they’re not working, maybe you cap them off so they’re flat and hang a metal art piece there. I can’t mock but here are sample pics of what I’m referring to.

While it would put a serious dent in the landscaping budget, a beautiful tree in front of the blank area with the small window, or less expensive, a large climbing rose, would in my opinion really help the look of that particular area of the house.

Have you posted on the many "House" forums here where the designers and architects hang out?

What a wonderful porch! Such possibilities. Don't be in a rush. I'd look around your area and look for landscapes that you like on similar houses. Find out which foundation plantings will work and look the best. The foundation plantings are the most expensive and should be longest lasting as possible for the price. I think low growing ones in front of the windows would be best, then taller ones at the corners. Then once you get the bones set you can concentrate on the more temporary plantings like annuals and perennials. As for the porch, I don't know how deep it is but if a bench or a porch swing would fit inside the left end wall I'd put one there. In the center I'd put either two rocking chairs of if you'd rather two Adirondack chairs with a garden table or plant stand between them. On the right either another rocking chair or Adirondack or some other very comfortable chair with another side table. I can't decide whether shutters would be a good choice, I've got a hard time visualizing it because the windows are mostly so small and if you do one, you would probably want to do them all. Yes, a couple of urns with matched plantings beside the door would be nice. And those planters that fit over the porch railings are nice if you want some instant annual color. I like the hanging baskets but if your railing is wood the constant dripping would not be good for it. I'm so jealous of how much fun you're going to have getting this the way you want.

I love your front porch. We had one on our last house and really miss it.

I'm not familiar with the housing styles in your part of the country. What I like may out of place for your area. I think you need to draw your eyes into the entry area more. You could do this by changing the door color to something that stands out a bit more. The white sort of blends in. I'd hang something on either side of the door. Could be iron work or lights or something artsy or even big pots with flowers.

I think you need a few plants with some varying heights. You need shrubs a little bit taller on each side of your stairs. I's plant something shorter sort of in front of the taller shrubs I love flowers, but know everyone doesn't like the upkeep. You can also use shrubs with different shades of green to get a layered effect.

I would add two taller plants on each side of the window on the taller section on the left side of the house. You could add an item of interest to hang up there in the big empty area above the window. I don't know what is appropriate for your area.

Your front porch could use some furniture and a porch swing. If you don't like to sit out there, I would keep it minimal. Everything you bring into a house is something to clean or care for.

Rita, I didn’t know that about the hanging baskets when one has real wood railings. It’s good to know because my DD just bought a house with a porch as well.

Susieque, you have a great canvas to work with, I hope you’ll post after shots when you’re done.

I love the look of porch rail planters for an easy way to add color and texture.

I have never seen this type before but they are very cute and colorful.

The porch overhang makes the front look very dark, or maybe that's just because of the photo.

I'd paint the railings the same white color as the other trim to lighten things up. Flowering plants as others have suggested would be great too.

I'm not sure there's room for shutters by all the windows.

The faux dormer on the otherwise flat porch roof is a curious touch.

Good luck!

Ok, here are some pictures from further back. Please pardon the coloring - it's a miserable day and I did try to correct the coloring but failed. I'm amazed at the number of responses here - thank you so much!

(BTW, unfortunately, the house is vinyl sided - so no changing that. That's what we've got to work with).

Note that the pics show the car in our driveway; my back is about to the garage. And you can see the grass on one side of the driveway. So .... you can see how narrow the street is, if it can even be called a street/road. The planting bed has some cobblestones separating it from the "street", but that's it.

We do have inset lights in the "ceiling" of the porch - they're not decorative but do provide light - at night.

Thanks again - keep 'em coming! Blank slate ... Landscaping, house, porch, anything.

I do think that a lighter color on the porch rails and columns would brighten it up considerably. And adding wider window trim on all the windows would be better than shutters due to the size of the windows. Those things would be easy and not too expensive to do. The little shrubs that are there are not helpful, I would remove them and add something that brings in color. Depending on what grows well in your area. Like hydrangea, lilac, roses, forsythia etc. And lots of bulbs like iris and Amaryllis and lilies that come back every year with very little attention. Even painting just the siding on the porch to a white would bring some more light under the porch. I absolutely love a porch swing so I definitely would like one if it fits.

We have some people who are good at photo manipulation who might be able to change the rails and post from brown to white?

You have a very angular house that needs some softening at the edges. Also, your plant beds are not very deep so your shrubs will mostly line up and not have much depth unfortunately to be able to obtain much of a layered approach.

I would not plant a tree in front of your house! Tree roots are no good for a foundation. I'm also not a fan of grasses in a foundation planting unless you can layer and mix in with other evergreen shrubs. I might move the grasses in a group of 3 down to the right and develop a curved bed down on that end.

Evergreens are what you need as your basic foundation. Looks like you already have something tall on the left which is good, just keep it neat and trimmed. I would start researching evergreen shrubs that do well in your zone, especially medium height ones that require low maintenance. I could recommend several. For color, choose a few perennials that will provide spring and summer color in the front of the bed. You could add a pretty birdbath on the center left where you have the tall blank wall. Something needs to cover the bare concrete foundation, but you could paint it until your plant material grows in.

In the meantime, good advice to buy a couple of large, tall pots and use them on the porch. You can put a couple of tall, slender evergreens in them or a pot of annuals.

I agree the porch rails and columns would probably look better white but that is a project you can take on after you start on the planting beds.

Depending on the area of the country be cautious about having any planting close enough to the dwelling to touch it. Air flow is important for many reasons including preventing moisture problems.

I am not certain what that little white door is for. Perhaps was used in the past for fuel delivery. Investigate it further before planting something directly in front of it.

You will need that faucet to water the plants as both the driveway and the various walls will reflect heat and light in that small strip. Any plants that you install there need to be very heat tolerant. There is a reason that strips like that are called hell strips in the city.

Driving around and looking today, another idea came to me.

The wood (or whatever it is) trim around the windows seems narrow. Is there any, or are the thin white strips just the window frames? If there aren't trim pieces, or i they're there but quite narrow, I think wider ones put on and then painted in whatever the white trim color is would be attractive. With or without adding shutters. Look at the trim on the windows in threejs photo, something like that.

I agree with Raven that wall really needs something. I like the flower boxes and taller shrubs. too.

Re:hanging plants on wood porch. If the porch rails and balusters are " notched" properly the dripping water from hanging plants will flow off the rails. Porch rails were usually constructed that way a century ago,

Often times today the balusters are flat on the bottom and are placed on a flat bottom rail. This is a perfect recipe for dry rot. Water from dripping plants puddles around the balusters rather than completely running off.

Here is a picture of properly notched setup.

I vote for shutters, a barn quilt in that big open space and tall evergreen shrubs to fill that tall blank area. Nice house!

I would beef up the trim around the windows, paint the front door a striking color, paint the railings white to match the other trim, and paint the lattice below the porch to match the house color. To me, the white makes it too prominent, and is the first thing I notice.

There doesn't appear to be much space for planting. I would probably plant something like hydrangea and annuals such as geraniums.

If/when you paint the railing white, consider beefing up the two posts on either side of the steps. Make them appear to support the triangular roof, adding importance to your entry.

I like the idea of an element of interest centered above the window on the tall side of your house. Overall, it appears to be a very pleasant house already -- just a few tweaks to enhance it and make it your own.

Your basic problem is that your foundation plantings are underscaled for the house. I'd recommend shrubs that will grow to almost the height of your porch rail. If you want evergreen, you can get some evergreen rhodos.

If you want an instant hit, buy a bunch of red geraniums and two red adirondack chairs. Put the geraniums in front of the shrubs and the chairs on the porch. A place to sit and coordinated color will make things pop. The geraniums are annuals. You can get red echinacea for perennials. You generally want a color scheme with 3 colors. Red, white and blue is nice. White viburnum shrubs, blue in Amsonia or salvia (also comes in red and white). If you want to go hotter, do red, yellow and orange. There are lots of native yellow flowers: rudbekia, Zizia, etc. Many grow pretty tall.

Winterberry will carry the red into the winter season and give you some color. It looks like your roof doesn't shed snow onto your foundation shrubs. If it does, you don't want winterberry. Mine got crushed every winter and always looked like it was barely hanging on. I dug it up and moved it.

While I agree that the porch railing makes things look dark, I'm always reluctant to judge by one amateur picture. Keep it in mind and decide if, day in, day out, you agree.

Is that a public sidewalk right in front of your house? If so, you might be able to plant a bigger tree in the hell strip. Often towns are fine with that, although they might limit you to something which won't create a root problem down the road.

I'm reading through all of the advice with great interest and thanks. Your ideas are fabulous. As I'm going through them, just a few things based upon some of the responses:

- I'm chuckling because no, there is no public sidewalk right in front of the house. That's actually the street! That's how narrow it is.

- Yeah, those current plantings are bad and I really want them gone. I like the idea of plantings that come close to the height of the railings (varied heights, too).

- I posted this in That Home Site, Home Decorating, and Landscape Design (limited to 3 forums with one post). I can post in some of the others, too, by creating a new post. Frankly, you are all so helpful that I'm not sure I need to.

- The faucet(s) on the porch aren't needed to water plants; there are other faucets and hoses on the two sides of the house that reach well. And the faucets are non-working, anyway (this house was remodeled at least once prior to us buying it - who knows what they were originally for!).

- Great point about the window trim being narrow. Yes! That would make a big difference.

- We've been planning to get a new door since we first viewed the house. Haven't done it yet, but am glad to have suggestions about a pop of color.

- Although we had a nice "barn-quilt-type" wooden piece on our garage at our other house, that decorative style won't work here, unfortunately. I brought it with us!

I've enjoyed reading these responses to my DH and we are considering everyone's input. It's so funny how we can live here day in and day out and not notice some of the things that you have.

Suzieque

bump

The root problem where plants are concerned is: proportion. The amount of planting space in front of your home does not allow adequate room for shrubs (let alone trees) that would be in correct proportion to the height of the home.

The standard rule of thumb for planting beds is that the width should be at minimum 1/3 the height of the home. For a 21 foot tall home that would be 7 feet. A wide planting bed allows for:

--space between the home and the plants, for home maintenance and to keep moisture and foliage away from the structure walls.

--"layers" of plants; tallest shrubs at the back; flowering shrubs/perennials forming the medium height layer, and then groundcovers/edgers in front.

The space for planting anything between the home and asphalt is too narrow for any substantial plants. The result is what you have there: relatively small shrubs that are dwarfed by the height of the home.

Other than removing some of the asphalt which if it is a road does not seem possible, you could consider some narrow-growing, tallish shrubs with a growth habit of around 3-5' wide and a mature height in the 10-15' range, to get some visual height. The species would depend on your climate and area.

If this were my house, with the limited space for planting, I would plant and train some non-invasive flowering vines and train them across the porch roof. You can string wire just below where the white wood trim is and train it along that. I would add a horizontal trellis above the far right window, to continue the line of the porch roof and do the same thing there (climbing, vining plants), maybe with some vertical trellises and climbing roses on them.

this is the same as the white one above after it's bloomed.

Regarding the faucets on the porch, maybe painting them the same color as the siding would help to blend them in better.

Think of your porch as an extension of the house as a room and decorate it that way. Use the expanse of wall for porch art. That can be actual art or sconce planters, or metal decorative pieces. Use furniture and rugs and little tables and lanterns. All of those things will bring warmth and color and texture. Plus be very inviting.

It does not have to be matchy matchy! An assortment of colors and objects.

I would love to have that front porch to decorate for all the holidays! Let pinterest and Google be your guide and friend. By the way I haven't said this yet but you have a beautiful home. I hope it's not a busy street! That's right up close and personal lol.

I love the Cupola and weather vane.

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some ideas:

more evergreen:

Do these hydrangeas and other plants still have greenery in winter? When I was landscaping my last house, I was told it was probably better to have evergreens next to the house so you had something to look at through all seasons. You wouldn't need to have evergreens straight across, but a few in strategic places would keep up the curb appeal through all of the seasons. I think you would possibly want evergreens on either side of the stairs for that reason. I think hydrangeas might be great elsewhere.

Hydrangeas are deciduous.

Wow Dig Doug’s that looks amazing!

bellburgmaggie

Hydrangeas are deciduous.

That's what I thought. Mine are, but I'm still navigating growing them so not sure of other varieties. Even reading about them and trying to plant them in a proper place with correct light, water and soil has been a challenge. I think I've finally figured it out.

There are other plants in the design that are evergreen. Most people enjoy the mix of deciduous & evergreen plantings.