I wonder if an "oval" of grass would help in this case??? I just looked up the definition of an ellipse on mathworld and my eyes are still spinning :-) I think Reyesuela makes a couple of good points. The first, regarding the grass shape, is that when you make your beds, you should pay attention to the shape of grass you are creating, not so much the shape of the bed - the bed shape will be more or less immaterial once you get it filled, while the grass shape will always show up. And actually, since you like formal, I might almost play with a rectangle of grass under the window surrounded by straight beds on three sides, obviously not going right to the road to avoid the snow plow - or putting low, tough plants like the most vigorous hostas on the road edge. The second, if I understand correctly, is to create a space within your front yard where you can be, or to enclose your house, rather than making it a sort of frame for your house to be simply looked at. I strongly agree that, especially when you have a small amount of space, what matters most is how you want to feel when you are in it or in the house looking out. Depending on the feel of your street, you may want to be visible; I don't know. What complicates this approach is what you say about the snow plow... you might be best off to make the front edge grass, along with the edges of the driveway where your car door needs to open. I would not not not do a standard foundation bed under the window. So predictable. I think a pretty patch of grass, tidy beds - not necessarily symmetrical plantings, but formal is good - there is really something about that row of Rhodies that just looks right. You could remove sod under them, joining their little patches into a long straight bed, underplant them a bit if you widen the bed. karinL

How many feet is it from the house to the front flower bed? How many feet from the sidewalk that leads from the house to the neighbors property line to the left? I'm not sure how you'd get the shading to the porch you want without blocking the view of the house from the street. How does the sun travel over your house? What side of the house does the sun rise and set? Do you want shading to the 2nd floor windows eventually? Are their any underground utilities on the left side of the front yard? I'm asking a lot of questions, aren't I! I do like the three trees you chose, but don't have any of them, so I can't help you with their growing habits. I think a non-fruiting crab would be great too. I guess I'm asking how large a height and spread would you like and what dimensions would be too big? Is the dogwood at the back of the house on the left side?

Oh, wherever things can possibly be complicated or delayed, I'm sure to find them! I was looking for advice firstly with the right "look". Once I knew what I "should" be aiming for, I figured I could fudge or approximate it somehow, depending on what the contractor told me/was willing to do. If nothing else, I now know what I need to aim for. The black option that I posted above is pretty wide, so I thought that would help give the impression of being wider-mounted, and in fact it's from a line called "Old Sturbridge", which should read traditional/colonial enough for the house. I also thought I had a better chance of using the existing wire hole to satisfactory effect if I got a down-arm or armless lantern. But maybe it's too authentic for a revival house and only really works on 1700s saltbox? The paint is alligatored and we aren't replacing or sanding the siding, so I was going to go with a sort of dark color to try to camoflage the condition. But now I'm rethinking that, in light of Teacat's suggestion that I make the entire surround off-white. I wouldn't want a lot of contrast on the house, so if we do whitish trim we'll go for a lighter colored house. We did sand (with a palm sander!) a house once. But that one was already down to bare wood in some places. This house has been painted at least once since it started cracking; the alligatoring is now effectively preserved for the long run. We are older and less ambitious now.

Before I'd make that ^ pronouncement, I'd question OP about what is meant by a 25 ft. limit in size. I'm about as sure as a guy at a computer at a remote location can be that what he/she means is that the yard section or whatever little plot this is is 25 ft. wide. That simply does not say anything about what tree can or can't "fit" that spot. Remember dear readers....large-growing "shade tree"-type trees, when mature, exist as a trunk somewhere out in the yard. The trunk may grow large, but no tree I'm aware of in the N. temperate zone is going to have a trunk 25 ft. wide. What is almost surely the case is that any large-growing "shade tree"-type tree could in fact easily inhabit that space...and at maturity, would consist of a trunk with all the tree up high overhead. Such trees form living ceilings over our "outdoor rooms" which is what landscaping seeks to provide. Take that same 25 ft. wide area, plant one of the ornamental, low-crowning species, and now you really have taken up all that space. Nobody can throw a ball around, nobody can even just walk there, because there's a big, wide-spreading ornamental tree crown in the way. That's the reality of this big tree/small tree conundrum-that many folks get it exactly backwards-the large-growing type-at maturity-taking up less space than the little redbud, fl. crab, or what have you. People that give out lots of landscape advice should learn to recognize this elemental fact.