hi all!

i'm mostly a lurker on this board, though i frequent the home forums more. we're building a custom house that our builder has dubbed "french eclectic" and it amuses me so we're going with it. :) we'd like to carry the french look through to the landscape. the lot is triangular and sits at the end of a cul de sac. we'll face northeast.

right now we're finalizing plans to break ground on the construction, so we're still several months away, but once the build is in progress, we will have a landscape designer put together an official plan. it has to be submitted and approved by the HOA and regardless, a professional landscape design consultation is included in our builder's feature list. just wanted to mention so nobody thinks i'm trying to bypass professional design help!

i just thought it would be fun to get some input now so that we have some inspiration to bring to that design meeting. any cool ideas come to mind when you look at our site plan and elevation?

i should also mention, we're focusing on the front yard only for now because we're putting in a pool next year (don't want to finance with our mortgage) and we'll tackle the backyard landscape at that point.

so, we like the symmetry and geometric elements of french landscape design, but don't like the super formal elements like sculptures, ballisters, fountains, etc. also, we're supposed to have a minimum of 2 trees in the front yard, both of which need to be lit up at night.

i was thinking a front walkway that bends at a 90 degree angle toward the driveway and keeping the foundation beds also squared off. thoughts on that? in our last house we had really curvy beds, so this is a departure for us. :)

any ideas?? thanks in advance!

elevation:
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site plan (sorry the back 1/3 of the lot is cut off on this pic):

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