I will go out on a big limb and say the front yard plantings need more structure, more boldness, and more unity. I think that is akin to what karinl is saying as well (pardon me if not). laag is the unity king, and so I will get into trouble with it by myself, but since the front of your home has a variety of different backgrounds--the wall, the inset porch, including the little fence, the driveway with garage viewed beyond-- those backgrounds themselves do not tie anything together, and so something in the garden itself has to--the choice of shrubs, or a strong edging planting, or something. Then, the fine-leaved plants disappear into the current background, and the ones you have now don't have much shape, so to me it all seems to disappear. So some kind of small tree or shrub with a trunk, or some larger-leaved plants, might give some oomph. Some of these would need to be set farther away from the house and driveway--the narrow beds hugging those edges contributes to the problem of not having the room for something with some mass or visual oomph to it. Or, as in the container suggestion, there could be a way to get this kind of structure in a non-plant material, and that might even work better. That said, it isn't necessary or even desirable for the plantings to all be continuous from the L edge (as viewed from the front) across and down the driveway edge. It might actually be better to think of having separate planting pockets in 2-3 areas in which you can design for the height and depth of the plantings that look best at that part of the house; then you would either tie them together with a low groundcover, or mulch, or potentially even the lawn connecting them. (To me, it's not always wise to tell someone that their plantings have to be one big sweep, because for some people that will create maintenance issues of large areas to mulch and to weed, compared with the simpler process of mowing the lawn, as long the way the beds are edged does not itself create more maintenance, or the lawn invade more, or something. Because otherwise, it may be too hard for you to plant fully in that whole area in a way that is affordable and looks good. In fact, I'm not sure that planting along the edge of the driveway does much of what you need from a front-yard standpoint--except that it's a fine way to grow more flowers and plants--something that I can sympathize with. Since you naturally want to try to use plants you already have, an example, I think, could include that instead of having narrow rows of roses all along the way, you might use several in a mass planting. Someone else here will really have to help me more with these concepts. Because one thing I am saying is that it lacks unity, and at the same time I am saying that I don't think you can accomplish a good thing by planting just a row of homogeneous little shrubs all along those edges. I'm not able to combine these ideas into a "do this" instruction, however. Don't despair--clearly you are getting out there and arranging and planting and learning about what you like and don't like.

What term can describe the result of this extra effort for this first view of the front of a property? As used above, I would just simply call it the front garden. I think there is a bit of west coast vs east coast different pages thing happening here too. Yardvaark's observation that plenty of people put all their effort out front and have a dog patch out back they would never dream of inviting guests in to is completely valid. Outdoor privacy, found in the back yard not the front, and privacy in general was valued a lot more out west. Much like 'foundation plants' had a certain ethos and design style associated with it, 'curb appeal' these days does too. Inkognito's original question way back at the height of the housing frenzy before the crash was "Is this whole notion that the only reason for working on the way our house and garden is presented is so that we can sell it on detrimental to domestic garden design? Yes it is. As the wealth of working people is clawed away from them in service to the god of vulture capitalism's endless greed for growth and profits, homes are ever more considered their last available investment and asset that will likely have to be sold off for people to survive their decrepitude with any amount of dignity. They can never really expect to grow old and die peacefully at home. This is an investment not a home. Not that 'curb appeal' implies completely ignoring everything else, but when it becomes a primary and most valued focus of applied residential landscape design, is it driving standard residential landscape design towards the banal beige of real estate agents wet dreams? When does it really become just another form of capitalist consumption that has to be changed out every so often like paint and wallpaper to keep things fresh? What about real homes and a sense of place? What about real gardens filled with life and individual personality? "Oh great. You have fabulous curb appeal. Do you garden?" Added: Yes you can read this as an extreme take on things. Few things are that black and white or all inclusive. It's not like the term 'curb appeal' makes my skin crawl. There is also a valid need to stage homes when they go on the market. It's more about how the ethos contained in this thinking takes hold and affects people's thinking and expectations about what gardens are really for. No matter, there will always be the Hyacinths who continue keeping up appearances.

It's hard to tell if I'm interpreting things right, but if I were you, I'd switch your focus from shaping the garden bed(s) to shaping the grass and paths. That's what 'shaping the negative space' is about. Can you see in the first picture in this latest group how nice a space the grass is between the brick edge of the bed and the edge of the road? It's a nice, calm green space to rest your eyes, and serves as a foil for the flower garden. Now look at your first sketch - can you picture that green swath making the turn at the driveway and running up the side of the driveway, past the garden bed(s) and sweeping around past the firepit area, towards the back of the house? It's not clear what happens when you get to the retaining wall/slope/shade garden area... If you focus on the sweep of grass as the important thing to carry you visually - and physically - through the area, then the path through the garden bed(s) become secondary things that you keep as simple as possible in line and material (mulch) to keep them in a minor role(the grass and the garden plantings are the highlights and the paths in the beds sort of disappear). There looked to be a grass slope behind the beds (?) How does that extend in relation to the shed? Could a mulch path extend past the firepit area, along the woodland edge to the shed while the grass swath continue to sweep in a U from the back yard, along the driveway, and along the back of the beds? If you stop thinking of the grass as an unimportant nothing relative to the plantings and instead think of it as a feature to use to enhance the garden and shape the space - and beds, you can create some high impact effects that might surprise you. That first picture in the group above reminds me of my front garden in some ways. Using the grass to shape spaces and using different material to make some areas subordinate to others is something that has worked very well for me here. Some of these pictures are a few years old and the plantings have changed a bit but they may serve to illustrate what I'm trying to describe... This is the front bed in early April a couple of years ago (taken from the roof of the garage!) Can you see that the grass path is the dominant sweep through the area and the mulch path past the small bed on the right is clearly secondary? You have more space so you would have a much wider grass path. There are also three mulch paths through the big bed - you can only see them in this view by looking to see where there are no (faint in early April!) signs of emerging plants. By mid-May those paths are a bit more obvious: Looking at the sweep of grass path from a different point of view, you can see that it is a powerful thing that draws your eyes as much as the plantings do and draws you into the garden. The line curves as the path changes direction but is otherwise straight and strong - it follows the line your feet would naturally take if you were walking past those beds. The narrow outer bed was shaped by the line of the top of the ditch by the road-side, and by measuring a constant distance from the big garden bed on the other side: I think your space lends itself to that sort of focus on laying out the space....

You could roughly allot a 10' x 16' space per vehicle. You could add an extra foot of walking space for the left parking space since it doesn't get to share any extra room of a parking space farther left of it. If vehicles that would typically be accommodated tend to be longer than average (pickup trucks.) you could make a length adjustment. It is a massive "grey area" as to how close or deeply one can excavate near an existing tree. I've seen situations where digging has come very close to a trunk but the tree survives and doesn't seem to suffer major consequences. It depends not only on how close or deep, but the shape of digging relative to the root arrangement, and on the tree species, and probably on the time of year. And maybe on the rain vs drought ratio. That's a lot of variables! Minimize risk by attempting to stay away from the drip-line area of the tree, if at all possible. If push comes to shove (how bad you need excavation in an area and with no way around it,) my general rule is don't bother more than 50% of the roots ... or expect the tree to die, in which case it is better to remove it to begin with. In general, since retaining walls tend to be utilitarian and expensive, they are only built when they are NEEDED to accommodate a grade change, or when they are part of a pronounced artistic theme that is part of the project. They are not built because "they would look cute or quaint over there." In this case, it seems like you could easily avoid having a retaining wall and create a more inviting parking space. I sense an aversion to having the parking near the house, but can't figure why this would logically be. As long as things are made to look good, there is no reason to spurn convenience. As you work through schemes and begin to put some up for further consideration and refinement, you could post any and get feedback on them. If there are intrinsic weaknesses, it is best to know of them early on so one doesn't waste too much time or effort.