Brent, This is an excellent question that has many answers. One needs to look no further than directly above in this thread to the posting of the photo by Prairie Love to garner an answer. It is always a little disconcerting to me that this is a forum where we have the opportunity to explore the issues of designing landscapes. Yet, just by the realities of the inescapable human element, we spend an inordinate amount of time not discussing design per se but rather the all-too-frequent real life situation of: I inherited this mucked-up mess... Now what do I do? Quoting Thomas Church, "Landscaping is not a complex and difficult art to be practiced only by high priests. It is logical, down-to-earth and aimed at making your plot of ground produce exactly what you want and need from it." If you are familiar with my writings over the years, you will recognize that I encourage people to use their minds. I really do have an abiding faith that the average person is more than up to the task of designing a pleasantly functional landscape if a bit of time is devoted to both study and thought. Sure abilities and results will vary. Joe and Jolene Average may never have the skill set to handle complicated, high-end projects. However, it is easily within Joe and Jolene AverageÂs abilities to avoid the common design blunders that we repeated time and time again on this very forum. If they need some further inspiration, they should not be afraid to consult a pro. As a society, we have largely abdicated our vital role in the decision-making processes of residential living. We have stood by on the sidelines, refusing to get involved until after the fact. Much of the siting and design decisions have been sloughed off to some contractor whose skills lay in pounding nails. When things really get bad, government gets involved and ordains codes where Âone size fits allÂ. All that one really has to do is go on some of the model home tours and you will quickly and objectively begin sort the wheat from the chaff. I suggest not doing this when you are actually in need of a house. Remove the pressure of time constraints. This exercise is best undertaken as research, not selection. Pretty soon you will find yourself asking; ÂWhy in the world did they do that? Or; ÂIf they would have only done it this way, then You soon begin to see what works smoothly and what doesnÂt. Magically, good design will rise to the surface like cream in the old milk can. As I have already stated, Brent, there are many answers to your question. Of course, each of those answers is site specific. Quite frankly, for many of the existing homes already mucked up, there remains no cost effective solution at this time. Throw enough money at it and most any problem can be made to go away. However, the law of diminishing returns soon kicks in. Problems are often cheaply avoided but can quickly become prohibitively expensive after the fact. For example, just down the block from me, a new home is going up on a corner lot that is almost of mirror image of my lot. My wife and I settled for nothing less than a corner lot. It is the only way to get away from the ÂWelcome to my garage" look with the typically small lots available today. Here was a perfect opportunity. The spec contractor just slapped the garage on the front of the house out of habit. The cost of the house would not have been increased a single cent to implement this bit of design forethought. It is too late now! IronBelly ...Nice job, Linlee.

View_west, that was a beautiful mockup!!! Actually now you're forcing me to admit that the picture I posted was taken before we even bought the house, and since then we have painted all the porch woodwork white, just as you showed in your mockup (the peeling paint that you see up high is taken care of as well). The tiny window trim is courtesy of the previous owners throwing up vinyl siding and putting in all vinyl windows, which of course have their benefits but the PO's took NO effort to make it retain some period-appropriate qualities. Shutters (color to be determined) and possibly wider exterior window trim are definitely in our next-few-years goal. As I mentioned before, doing a complete re-do of the front walk is just not going to happen for a while, but the idea of widening it with pavers or bricks is intriguing. My only concern is how it would look to do that around a sidewalk that isn't in the very best of shape. re: the hostas, I can and am certainly using them generously elsewhere in the shady areas of our front yard, they were just nixed for the walkway border. And I'll fill in another gap on why I'm searching for an option for this. See, I make about 98% of the design decisions on the house and garden while Partner mostly just sits back and says "yes dear, whatever you want" and splits the work for putting my vision in place, which of course is perfectly fine with me. :::sheepish grin::: However, every once in a while something will come up that Partner absolutely loves and seriously wants. Now, a few of those I've put my foot down and said noooooo no no, no way. But since Parter really wanting something happens so rarely, when it does come up, I try hard to say "yes" even if it's not what I would choose to do - and lining this long walk with a single low plant is NOT what I would choose. However, there are several houses in our neighborhood who have done that, and Partner absolutely LOVES the look, I mean LOVES LOVES LOVES the look, to the point of stopping every time we take the dogs for a walk and admiring it, and so I just can't say no. But airport lights lining the front walk?!? You'd better believe I would have said NOOOOOOO no way to that. HOWEVER, you can bet'cher bippy that my long term plan is for those border plants to kind of get lost in the bigger design as I gradually fill the front yard with nothing but curved, informal garden beds separated by paths with a huge variety of plants... get my drift on this? So anyway, that's where I'm going with this, and why. Anyone know anything about creeping wintergreen?

Thank you, @jjpeace (zone 5b Canada)! I also prefer soft colors and my style is a bit informal, romantic, and cottage-gardeny, though I'm trying to be mindful of my natural surroundings (that is, I don't live in a thatched-roof cottage). Do you mean you would mass plant your favorite rose all around the front garden or as a row next to the new boxwoods? I like Olivia Rose Austin because of the light pink color, old rose look, repeat blooming, reputation for disease resistance, and bushy growth. Other contenders are Princess Alexandra of Kent and Gertrude Jekyll. I know the best way to choose a rose is to plant top contenders and see how they perform for a year or two, but I cannot exercise such restraint. The rose that grows the best for me is David Austin's Munstead Wood, but the color is too dark for what I want up front. My second favorite is Sophy's Rose, which again is too dark. Secret (Hybrid Tea) and Le Petit Prince (Floribunda) are my best light-colored roses, but not the style I want for the front area. Roald Dahl performed poorly the first year, small and few buds, but I'm giving it more time.

The first thought I had is a tinted concrete walk way.