You haven't said the house is symmetrical, and even if it is you don't need symmetry but rather balance. I'm not clear on why you've chosen to divide the yard into "designed" and a "plant collector's" halves. You can design with special plants, integrating the two objectives. And you wouldn't be the first one to begin your design process with the plants you have or want. But what does catch my attention is the word "perennials". It may have escaped your attention that there are a lot of very special plants to collect in families like conifer, Japanese maple, and rhododendron ( you may curse me when you find out how much money can be spent on those plants :-)). I frequently recommend that people take a spin around the conifer forum to get an idea of the world of dwarf conifers. I started with perennials too, but am finding them much less gratifying and less amenable to being designed with as my interest in overall landscape has escalated. What you're after with plants like that is "bones", which is something you can do with hardscape as well. To post a photo, you could check out the gallery side, and put a link to it here in this thread, or you post from a Photobucket or other photohosting site. What you want to put into the body of your message here is the html code, starting with something like KarinL

FYI - 58th Annual Garden Tour "SASHAY SOUTH" April 26 - 27, 2008 The public's greatest opportunity to enjoy Tulsa's private residential gardens in full spring splendor, presented by members and patrons of Tulsa Garden Club. Fulfills National Garden Clubs, Inc. objectives to educate the public and advance the art of gardening, horticulture, landscape design and environmental sciences. Open to the Public $8 advance ticket purchase $10 ticket purchase on Tour days at the gardens FOR ADVANCE TICKETS CONTACT Tulsa Garden Center 2435 South Peoria Avenue Tulsa, OK 74114 (918)-746-5125 FOR TOUR INFORMATION CONTACT CATHEY WILSON 918-298-5235 FOR PUBLICITY CONTACT LISA MITCHELL 918-742-2093 Saturday, April 26 10 AM - 5 PM Sunday, April 27 Noon - 5 PM --------------------- Sounds cool. If the weather's good, I'm going to try to go. I need landscaping ideas.

Chrysanthemums (varies), symphiotrichum-New England aster(purple), viola- pansies(varies), hypericum-st. John's wort (yellow/orange leaves) are a couple off the top of my head. You could force some bulbs In pots as well. Obviously the thread is old I'm just throwing it out there for others with the same dilemma.

Silvia, it seems like you can relate then to the cookie cutter landscaping. I'm pretty set on what I'm going to do on the one side and crossing my fingers that it works out. As you can see from the picture above, the house being built next to us is slightly moved up in the lot so right out of our garage faces right into their patio. I wanted to find something to plant there that would help block the view. I have been looking all over the place and came across the Juniper Spartan. I'm not that knowledgeable with them, but I got the impression that they are a pretty hard plant (I could be wrong though). I'm certainly open to other ideas, but as you can see the space is limited and planting something that is dense, but also attractive to our eyes is ideal.