I'm sort of in shock at how bare the house looks now. And as you can see we need to paint the window frame since it has been hiding unloved behind the bushes for so long. Now that I can actually see the bottom window, I also plan to put shutters on it that match the top ones.

I'd love to plant flowers in the front (purple coneflowers in particular are really lovely in the summers here) because it is one of the only spots in my yard that gets sun. However, I also want to plant something that will stay green in the winter since our upstate winters are just so intensely white.

This is my first house, so I'm still a bit of a newbie at landcape. I love to garden though and have filled my back yard with rhodies and peonies and all sorts of goodies.

For the front, I am interested in pee wee oak leaf hydrangeas and also red sprite winterberry bushes for color. However, I'm not totally sure how much space they need. I would like for our new bushes not to cover and block the front windows the way the old ones did. I'm also concerned about the winterberry because I know I would need a male bush but can't find any decent pictures of the male bushes and don't know how big they would get.

Anyhow, here are a few of my ideas. Do any of them seem plausible?

In this photo: coneflowers, red twig dogwood, hydrangea, red twig dogwood, coneflowers

In this photo: coneflowers, winterberry, hydrangea, winterberry, coneflowers

Feel free to suggest other plants and ideas I might not have thought of yet.

Oak leaf hydrangeas are marginally hardy here. Paniculatas do well, but aren't as interesting during the winter.

I'd avoid the symmetry because the trees on the left side will affect the plants growth assymetrically. It's better to plan for that from the start.

The reason I thought of an oakleaf is because I've seen them here in Rochester. I'm from the West Coast originally and don't recall seeing them there at all -- so it's interesting that they are marginally hearty. What do you mean by that? That they are picky about soil? Won't grow very tall?

Same idea, two angles:

I also think the assymetry idea is good. What if you took the bed on the left side of the window and made it deeper than the area near the door? That would let you do more layering of taller stuff toward the back & narrower plants near the front. You could have a dogwood toward the back, some birds-nest spruces in front (they grow really slowly, so they won't take over like the arborvitae did). And interplant with perennials and other stuff.

I love winterberry holly for many, many reasons. But it does tend to like wet soil, or at least plenty of moisture. Is this a dry area? If so you might want to choose something else for winter interest there (rosa rugosa? But it's crazy-thorny).

Left to right: birds-nest spruce, viburnum carlesii, red trig dogwood, azaela, birds-nest spruce, viburnum carlesii,