There is now a pear tree at the outermost part of the bed (looking at the second picture, it would be in front of the satellite dish, which is not in use).

I would like some privacy for the cement patio.

And I absolutely love climbers... just don't want to ruin the porch.

Thanks!!!!

None of the fantasy plantings are actually located in the area you asked about; none of them deal with the grade change. From the front of the house (your current first photo), the view of that corner has not changed, and there's nothing that provides privacy to the patio from the front.

Unfortunately, it's all smoke and mirrors.

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I think you would get get more responses if you could post photos taken from farther away:

= A better view of the patio.

= A long view taken from in front of the corner where the house meets the patio. This should also show the area to the left beyond the patio.

(Since you didn't show us the left-hand side of the patio, I have to assume it was privacy from the street that you were concerned about. If it's the next-door neighbors being able to see the patio that bothers you, a photo from the same location, aimed toward the property line closest to the patio, would also help. Or you could stand on the patio with your back against the house and take the photo.)

= A similar long view of that entire bed, taken from in front of the corner of the front porch.

To pam29011's request for more information, I add a request that you also let us know how far from the side of the house the property line is.

I'm not a pro, but I believe you're going to need more than just a few landscape timbers supporting the soil at the corner.

humm, how do you compensate for proportion and relative size with the program you use? Sometimes broccoli is taller than shrubs and occasionally weeping cherry is shorter than a 4 foot high deck? Asters as tall as rhododendrons...its a really interesting mock up.

"they aren't some photoshop pics,don't comment something you don't know well."

Holy crap this is a tough forum. I liked how you did it. I have been wanting something like that for a while to try to put into place an area for my house, but never knew how. I did not assume it was photo shop, I was asking.

My word, people here are sensitive.

Your question is one of plant selection, but we are a design forum. Straight-up plant selection questions are usually best answered at your local nursery, where you can choose from plants that are actually available to you.

You've had bad luck here with Designshare, whose picture contributions usually put threads badly off track (your word contributions, designshare, are usually not bad!). If you decide you do want some overall design suggestions, then you might take photos as suggested by Missing the Obvious and both show and explain the overall design challenge, not just the foundation planting. Read a couple of other threads here maybe to get a feel for the type of discussions that might more productively engage contributors than the open-ended one you've asked. One such thread is linked below, and another one is here: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/design/msg0515213825483.html

You do have an interesting issue with that open porch which I for one, with a skunk currently nesting under our garage, would prefer to close off before planting in front of it.

KarinL

The beauty of it all, design, is that you're hardly being censored - so far you've had free reign to take any posted picture and tart it up with thousand year old trees (never mind that those are difficult to find in garden centers here) and tidy patches of miniature bamboo, pathways and azaleas plopped over patios.

Likewise, forum members are at liberty to critique your work. And you don't always get a trophy just for participating.

Because that is the issue I have with your mock ups - they are unrealistic and impossible to create. I think people who post here are looking for real answers to real problems.

It would be best, though, if you post your pictures on the gallery side, and just put some words here, with a link to your gallery post (since the gallery doesn't get much traffic otherwise). Or if people who want to see your pictures contact you privately for more, that seems like a just about perfect solution to me.

I hope we get back to the OP's problem at some point...

KarinL

I took another look at your photos and had some ideas (sparked by the conversations here).

Job no, 2: have something other than soil against the house that is soil stained, check overflow of rain guttering while you are at it.

Job no. 3: Build a low retaining wall at bottom of slope.

Job no. 4: If you seriously want to have plants growing in the area that is now dirt with a broken tooth edge then have it seriously designed and constructed. If the objective is 'hide the foundation planting' hiding it with something even more ugly is perverse logic.

Designshare, I think that it's impressive that you continue to contribute despite the comments of people who seem to believe they are the authority on everything. I'm sure that many people have enjoyed your pictures, including the original poster on this thread.

Unfortunately, I don't really have the time to do work like that for free and people generally aren't willing to spend that kind of $ on landscape design, but rather on the design of the home instead. But I will say that for those who are somewhat computer literate and don't want to spend thousands on a good design program, Google Sketchup is surprisingly capable with a little experience. You would even be able to import photos of the house and convert them to 3D quite quickly along with terrain. From there, you can access plant libraries from literally thousands of sketchup users. It isn't as easy as some of the more powerful programs, but for speed, it really can't be beat as a visualization tool.

Sorry, don't mean to hijack the thread, just wanted to offer some help in terms of visualizing what can be done with a "blank slate" like this.

KarinL