Can the blue spruce be planted toward the left side of the cleared space? I would want the space between the sidewalks to be lawn.

Where are you located geographically? What direction does the planting bed face? Important to know for any plant suggestions.

Also, outside of a very limited geographic range, blue spruce tend to suffer from a lot of fungal issues and needlecast and rapidly become disfigured and ugly. There might be better choices.....

Cecily, yes the BS can be planted to the left. My challenge is how to shape the bed on the left side of the sidewalk.

Gardengal, we are in zone 5B, in the NW part of North Carolina- in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The front exposure is South/South East. It doesn’t have to be a Blue Spruce, but I really admire them.

Just checking as your OP can be interpreted differently, but you want a Blue Spruce in tree form or 'bush' form? You can get the color with globe BS as an accent rather than anchor specimen. If you go tree, with the seemingly tight space between sidewalk you'd have to use a compact habit like Dwarf, Baby Blue, or Fat Albert. But it looks like a straight dropoff with some stone retainers at an angle from the house corner, if so a tree might have to encroach right in front more in line with the center of the window and that may not be an optimal layout.

I would rethink the need for a Blue Spruce; that's a very small space for a tree that becomes quite large. Actually, it's a small area to consider planting any tree in when you consider the space a tree needs for root growth.

The area does have a retaining wall to the left in the picture, then a big drop off. The planting area is approx 15’x11’. The compact blue spruce sounds good

I an in awe of your beautiful distant view. I would not plant anything that would block it. Think about low growing mounded plants in the foreground that look like an extension of the background.

When I saw this picture this morning, the thing that surprised me the most was the sidewalk in a WNC setting. You have a sidewalk and that view?

Because you have what looks like a boulder wall to the left (and how much of a drop off exactly?), the planting bed on the left side of the house needs to go from the front entry walk, across the front of the house and all the way out to the sidewalk. The planting bed should run the whole length of the boulder wall.

Take a warm hose and lay out the shape, the edge of your lawn. The remainder along the house and wall is one large bed.

The needle cast of Blue Spruce has been particularly bad in Haywood County, NC the last several years. It is easily treated with a fungicide in spring with the right timing. The dwarf form is better suited to that and the space you have to work with than a tree.

A sidewalk with that view. Imagine that.

This juniper has the color of blue spruce without the height. It would look great with your house color and would cover your foundation nicely.

LOL! Yes, we have a sidewalk! The drop off from the retaining wall is only about 4ft, but steeper when you go just a little more left of the house. We just put in a stairway down the hill so I can get down there for my gardening.
The view is out the back of the house where the decks are (this picture is the front). And, yes, it is super nice.
I am intrigued about the juniper, will definitely check that out.
Thank you all for the helpful comments. I really do appreciate it 💙

I'd keep everything low and plant the spruce and pyramid elsewhere. If you plant something tall in the back of your bed, it will block the porch or the window. If you plant it in front, it will look funny and block the view of the garden.

Hillside with rugged stone path: spring · More Info