Wonderful house. I see azaelas in the front beds - tall enuf to break up the horizontal porch line. What zone are you in?

"These things are probably not going to jump out at me... " That's why we're suggesting methods by which an inexperienced person can determine where water will run. One comment about lyfia's suggestion of using the the garden hose ... where I am, in Florida, the soil is so sandy that one could run a garden hose for days and water would never reach the property perimeter because it soaks into the ground too quickly. BUT one can spray a shower of water in a small area, create a puddle there, and that puddle will run somewhere a little bit and tell one which way is downhill from that particular spot. Move in that direction and create another puddle. Where does it go? Go in that direction and repeat the process and, eventually, by combining this method with any obvious visual clues, you'll begin to discover where water is/will drain from your property. During a torrential downpour, that's where water will generally go. If your site has places where water will be trapped or where it will run toward the house, that's what you'd want to fix before you add any landscaping. And if there are places where water will run with such force that it will take some of your ground with it, that's where you'd be wanting to create that rock-lined channel (presuming you need it) ... which might be a combination of creating the channel and grading nearby ground so that water enters the channel. In other words, you don't want the water itself to decide the "art" of your yard. You want to decide that, but while working in concert with what the water will already be doing. You would balance where it will already be against where you want it to be, trying to come up with something workable that's attractive.

I usually buy my rocks from a quarry and either have them delivered or I bring em' home in my beater P/u from the quarry. There also seems to be an almost unlimited supply of rocks every time I put my shovel to the soil. Less now that I have very little need to use a bulldozer. Thankfully that work is done. I use logs and stumps in my garden. There is no shortage of them here in the PacNW. http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i283/Botann/2379430770036511179.jpg http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i283/Botann/014-2.jpg http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i283/Botann/My%20favorite%20pics/IMG_3658.jpg Sedums are growing on the stump in the 2nd picture. Mike

Unless the chair and table will actually be used, it would be a very awkward placement. Are you going to go outside....alone.....and sit in the front yard? Ever? There is a best time to plant in your area, and it's the early spring. However, containerized plants can be planted much of the year, if taken care of properly. Even in the deep South, landscape installation projects of all kinds are completed in the hottest time of the year. We landscaped our own yard in northern Alabama in the middle of summer with zero loss of plants. What I suggest for you, since you seem to have problems with survival is to smooth out the area, adding soil if needed and dressing it with a little mulch. Leave it alone until the spring. You may end up appreciating that bare space after you get used to it. But regardless, no one can really help you unless we see pictures of the area. We need to see the dimensions of the site and what the front of the house looks like.