I should have mentioned that I'm looking for a foundation planting to replace the oakleaf hydrangeas and that I am in Zome 5 in Wisconsin. I want an unusual evergreen. Sorry--I should have included that in my original message. Thanks again--

I like Pieris 'Brouwer's Beauty', which is broadleaf evergreen, but it is not formal-looking. Also, it grows REALLY slow.

As a side note, I would strive not to obscure that flare on the left corner with a plant...you have a lovely house!

Pieris need shade during the hottest hours of the day. If you can provide that, it might be a good choice. If not, keep looking.

I would also say to keep the plantings low. Foundation plantings were invented to hide ugly exposed foundations, and you don't have one. If you are looking for design suggestions, a photo from farther out that shows the entire front and some of the surrounding area would help. If you are looking for plant selection help only, try the shrub forum, and/or provide more info. Soil type, amount of sun, moisture, maintenance requirements, etc., existing plants, all come into play when selecting plants.

Missouri Botanical Garden's online Plantfinder is a good resource as it has a searchable database. Some universities also have them, and books are a good source of info. Of course, none of it will mean anything if the suggested plants aren't available at the nurseries near you, so that may be a good place to start.

Bring a pad and pencil, and write down the names and characteristics of any plants that interest you that might fit your needs. Ask the staff for suggestions. Bring your photo with you. Once you have the list, do your homework. Online sites that sell plants don't mention their liabilities. Plantfinder or Uconn's plant database and similar resources with nothing to lose will be more forthcoming.

Check your library, too.

I don't know what ground covers you have there now, but it reminds me a little bit of heather gardens and the photos I've seen of the knot gardens at Filoli Gardens. While you may not want anything as formal as a knot garden (maybe you do?) the effect is lovely even in a more informal layout.

http://www.scripsit.com/journal/Filoli_knot_garden.jpeg

It also reminds me of gardens made up of heaths and heathers, which have colorful flowers and foliage and if done properly will look great all year. Your zone will be too cold for some of these plants, but you can certainly do something similar with the ones that are hardy, interspersed with dwarf conifers with colorful foliage.

http://www.ordovergallery.com/ChristopherBurkett/portfolio02/images/cb_019.jpg

Just my thoughts. Great house, by the way.

Thanks for all of your thoughtful replies. As requested, here is a wider image of the front of the house:

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A fellow gardener suggested splurging for some large, mature boxwood that have been allowed to assume their natural form--i.e., less clipped. With an eastern (i.e., toward Lake Michigan) exposure, I am sure that my front yard tends more toward Zone 6b rather than 5a. (Note: We are about 3/4 mile away from the lakeshore, but the lake definitely affects our prevailing neighborhood climate.)

What do you think about the boxwood idea? Maybe 3 big boxwood, right under the windows? Thanks again!

P.S. I am always looking for interesting groundcover links, saypoint, so thanks for yours.

japanese holly is a similar suitable substitute for boxwood if a little more size is required....glossy concave leaves make it an attractive plant

I wouldn't add anything under the windows, the architecture of your house is THE statement here, don't try to overwhelm it.

saypoint is correct, a low-growing "tapestry" of plants would be so lovely there. You already have a great beginning. And I also love the idea of conifers interspersed among the groundcovers. You could add drama with Ilex 'Skypencil' if you wanted to.

OR, instead of conifers, and taking a cue from your grasses at the entrance, why not try using them among the groundcovers as well? It looks like you might have some there already. I could see a large grass to the left of the bank of windows, echoed by smaller grasses in a sweep toward the sidewalk. Think about natives, there are many for your area.

Your design issue, IMHO, is not what to place at the foundation, but how to enhance the beauty of the architecture within your overall landscape design.

I agree that the architecture is nice. I don't think the plants look bad.

.... here comes the BUT ...

But, there is no composition. Everything looks good when viewed separately, but not as a whole. It actually separates into whole pieces - a square planting of mixed vegetables, a building, a walkway, a sidewalk, and a screaming driveway leading to a garage that does not go with anything.

I think that I would want to make everyone see a space and know what the heart of that space is. I'd want to make people not notice the driveway so much and forget all about the garage.

The whole building is brick and covering some of it with foundation plants, if that is how you can achieve it, is not going to kill the beauty of the building in my opinion.

I think that adding bed shape and negative space to that planting would make a huge impact to the composition.

I also would not find it a sin to interupt the sweeping line of the house. Our brains will all finish off the sweep if the interuption is not over done. It does not have to be done as a corner plant in a foundation planting, but something has to mellow out that drive and bring you back into the house. Adding a foreground that would create a background in front of the house is one good trick to that end.

I want to pull you into the body of that house not leave you looking at a doormat planting that just sits there in front of it.

I'm no expert in photoimaging and only use a freebie cut & paste program, so bear with me.

This is very basic and only meant to illustrate that a cheesy composition is going to do more than planting interesting plants without strength of composition.

{{gwi:51018}}

You certainly can do it a bunch of other ways other than a yew hedge, a columnar hornbeam, ilex, groundcover, and lawn that would be more fun and creative. I know I sure would. As bad as this is, it does more to mitigate the bad perifery and bring you into the house. Now try it with better plants and enhance and embellish.

The use of generic plants in the illustration ought to illustrate the concepts without getting people to be distracted by nicer plants for the purpose of this study.

If you don't want grass, I would suggest a small meet & greet patio to create a negative space to strengthen the beds and planting composition.

And for the lawn haters ....

{{gwi:51019}}

A thought I had was to bring out the colors you have used on the house - the spruce green door and burgundy roof and use foliage color to accent. I've used dwarf globe blue spruce, dwarf blue alberta spruce and blue spruce sedum, along with purple heuchera, blue fescue and white snow-in-summer. Just an idea.
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Andrew, I have to ask. What are you using to cut and paste? I never thought I'd see you do mockups, but they certainly are helpful when you are trying to demonstrate a point.

You're right, of course, about the garage, and the need for an overall design and composition before plant selection. Did you put a line of shrubs against the house because you thought it was needed? Just wondering.

Paint the garage the color of the house so it seems part of the overall picture. Love the house.

I used paint.net - a freeware download that is similar to adobe photoshop elements.

I just cut an old yew hedge out of a picture of an existing landscape to quickly fill the space (not to say that is what to do).I'd be all day trying to find nice plants in photos to cut, paste, resize, and make someting nice. Plus it illustrates the point better when you see what the form does without getting excited about the particular plants.

Not to pick on Jan, but the plants in that photo would not look like that in real life. Other than the four spruce, nothing in there would be any higher than what is in the existing photo. That is what makes it a dangerous program.

Pretty nice artwork "lagg" and "Jan44".

Philosopher, your house is unusually tall with a pitched roof. This opens up a lot of possibilities for a great landscape. I think you aught to plant something tall around the left corner of the house. This may help connect the high roof with the rest of the plantings. This would also help keep you house cool in the summer depending on the orientation of your house.

Once you're done, it would be interesting to see the before and after pictures look like. I invite you to share what you've done at MyGardenPlans.com.

Didn't know I was going to be so harshly critiqued. If I must justify...I beg to differ. What do you mean it wouldn't be any higher? It wouldn't grow any higher?...GOOD. I don't want to hide the architectural interest of the house. I don't think you know what program I use - photoshop CS3 and I clone and mask out the backgrounds which makes it much better to visualize, I think. I like that "rounder" forms of the globe spruce and heuchera imitate the arch of the windows and doors. The colors might look different on your monitor, but they look very realistic on mine. Maybe you're a little biased. (:

Does the front yard have to carry all of the landscape design burden to incease curb appeal? From the OP's pic, it appears both sides of the house are flanked by rectangular drives.

I was intrigued by Laag's comment on adding negative space to the OP's visually textured/busy design as either lawn or the flat stone work (in both cased non-plant material). I was thinking how could the white pastel driveway, another space of non-plant material, be used as negative space to enhance this design?

I did something similar with my own house. As I don't have a front lawn, just a large driveway and two sideyards, the sideyards were made to be "busy" leaving the drive as negative space of sorts.

Interesting how the flat white empty negative space of a driveway compares to that of the negative space in rendings of the front yards.

Sorry to ramble, but when I get a PSC, I feel compelled to write it.

Jan,

The only negative comment that I have is that the plants you have shown are at a much greater scale than they would actually appear in real life. It is the nature of these programs that 3 blue fescue plants and a couple of heuchera can connect that house to that sidewalk very easily while in reality it would take a lot more to fill that space.

It is a nice composition. It is just that it is way out of scale, yet it looks like it is not. That is how it might look if the house was only about 8' away rather 20'-30'. Mine are deceptive too. The one with the lawn pushes the house back an extra 10'.

It is the nature of the program. It is not your design that is at fault.

Here is the same planting skewed a little bit. See how much different it makes the space look. I'm not saying it is more accurate. I'm only saying that each is believable, but they are not the same.

{{gwi:51022}}

Remember the bungalo that was very close to the road?
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Doesn't the planting image make it look farther away from the road than the brick house?

The point is that photoimagine is very deceptive and should not be trusted.

Most certainly the shape and color of a driveway are part of the landscape design. Unfortunately the drive is in place before there is any thought about the overall big-picture, and the attention then turns to plantings. If you have a good builder, then something other than the obligatory rectangle will be provided.

Enlightened drives will have consideration for turn-outs, guest parking, and a flowing shapes that meet practical purposes with consideration for the aesthetic purpose. After-all the drive-way/garage combo is the most important entry into the average suburban home, so more design-style should be considered. When flowing beds and flowing lawn spaces combine with great architecture, the results are often let down by a driveway (speaking in general, and not about the OP's house).

Maybe it would help to mark approximate distances on mockups to compensate for the foreshortening of the images in the photographs. Temporary tick marks can be added as a guide to placement and scale on both ground plane and structures, so that plants can be scaled more appropriately. You'll still have to eyeball to compensate for plants and distance that will look smaller in the background and larger in the foreground, and make a plan view to make a final planting plan.

I think these are useful to experiment with arrangements, shapes, and colors, not to plan for specific plants.

With respect to driveways, good builder/bad builder shouldn't enter the debate on this particular thread. In an older urban setting with standard urban lots, the luxury of turnouts, guest parking, and flowing shapes took second place to direct access to the garage, parking pad or whatever while leaving the homeowner his little obligatory patch of lawn. Where would a driveway redesign go on this property? Not everyone has bought into acreage which affords a sweeping approach softened by an allee of fine old trees ending at the port cochere.

The immediate problem the OP wants to solve is an effective use of the front yard gardening area. The mock ups do show what is possible. Rounded shapes under the windows compliment the rounded arches, to my eye. The "lawn haters" offering draws my eye to the rock and I have to make a concerted effort to look elsewhere.

Without reinventing the wheel, perhaps a project down the line would be to paint the garage so it doesn't stand out white against the nice brick of the house. I love the house; builders today, even good ones, can't capture this kind of charm with new materials.

Duluth;
"speaking in general, and not about the OP's house". This posting was in regards to a general question about how the negative space of a drive impacts a house, and how that needs to be considered more. Lessons can be inspired from any source that need to be presented to all readers.

For this residence and a big budget, adding brick edging and lines of brick across the drive would blend this space into the house architecture.

Back to the original post: the person wants something a little more formal. I just LOVE Jan's design. Even if it is not exactly in scale, the OP can certainly take the idea and modify it with appropriate plants. I also was thinking use the blue in the door in the plant material, and there are conifers that would work. The stonework is awesome so maybe some stones (that's informal) or a stone bench. The driveway could be stained and the garage door painted, I agree with that. I was thinking a trellis with a vining plant on the drive side of the windows, again that is more informal and cottagey, but it is a possibility. The house is so beautiful and I like the yard already, it just needs to find a way to become cohesive.
Laurie

I am partial to laag's version that includes lawn, other than that, using the existing plan minus grass, I think the evergreen hedge under the window and maybe a snowfountain weeping cherry or table top pine in the center of the current bed. Maybe a couple boulders and/or garden art.

It should be pointed out that it is not so much the color of the driveway and garage as it is a void that sucks you in.

The tree that I show in the mock ups is not to screen the garage, but to give a stronger alternative to catch your attention. If you take two steps to the right (not something often done here in Massachusetts) the garage and driveway would be in full view, but the tree would still make them less significant. It is like having someone standing next to you, you know he's there and he commands a certain attention even if you are not looking at him. Push the tree back to the house and he is positionally les significant and you go back to the driveway and garage. It is more psychological than visual.

Thanks for that clarification, Andrew. Knowing why it works is as important as knowing that it is needed.
Jo

I love the look of the house. I think the ideal answer would combine laag's tree on the side, Jan44's blue mounds and duluth's suggestion to paint the garage to match the house. I think this situation is a good illustration of the importance of color, in combination with laag's point about hiding things in plain view. The white of the garage draws your eyes as white normally does. But that's not where you want your eyes to go, so painting it to match the house will help take that distraction away. Adding the tree on the side would further reduce the garage's ability to draw your eyes. The blue mounds in the plantings would be nice harmony in color and shape with the house features. I would also keep any other plantings to a minimum and with minimal other introduced color so the final plantings are a quiet tan and blue that focuses all the attention on the attractive house. If the front door was a different color, you might need to have a different color for the plantings, so the OP might want to give some thought to whether the door color is what they want for the future. I like the current door color.

Laag: I know what you mean by scale, but just how do you know the house is 20-30' from the sidewalk? You must have more information than is posted in this thread. Doesn't look that big to me. I'm simply trying to come up with a "visual", because, as you know, some have difficulty visualizing unless the they have some degree of detail. As duluth says, the mockups show what is possible. It is just a basis for further thought, not a engineered draft. Without more information, I have no clue whether the house is 20' or 12' from the sidewalk and I doubt you do either. What is photoimagine? I use PHOTOSHOP. I didn't know I would be so harshly criticized, so I won't bother posting here again. Wouldn't want to make you look bad again.

jan,

there are several visual cues one can use to infer rough distances in photos: average distances between expansion joints in the concrete driveway, for example; or estimating the depth of the front porch and eyeballing that distance coming forward. I'll often count bricks in a photo to draw a rough elevation of the house while waiting for the contractor to get me true field measurements. That said, this photo looks a little funky, like it was either take with a wide angle lens or edited on a computer without constraining the proportions...

"Harshly criticised" --- Laag is pointing out the drawbacks of photoimaging in general and using your mockup as an example. It's a common thought from laag.

"Photoimagine" is meant to be "photoimaging," a general term, and its misspelling is no worse than "a engineered draft."

The blue door is more effectively highlighted with a tiny hint of blue elsewhere, and is overpowered by all the blue plants. In my opinion.

Whatever...
"a engineering draft" is an obvious error;(excuse me) photoimagine sounds like a piece of software and was used in that context. I was just doing an idea, not a precise plan. Didn't know this forum was open only to experts doing plans, so I guess I'm out of my league. Geesh.

I like Laags image from November 26th...or 29th??

The one thing I'd look at though, is placing some plantings in the forecorner where the drive and sidewalk meet....with some height there to break the harsh corner.
As someone else mentioned, changing the garage color will blend that in some.
While this isn't a formal bed, it DOES break up the brick facade...softens the sharp angles with the mounding plants, and the curving flow of the plantings. I might consider a little height in the corner where the vestibule and front of the house meet to soften that a little more, also.