Specialty Gardening: Would like advive for more of a cottage appeal, 1 by critterologist

critterologist wrote:
Sticks, I had the same notion with regard to expanding the front beds to include a sweep from the driveway to the front door, on the other side of the walkway. I like the idea of leading your eye to the door with colorful plantings rather than with pavement.

Our front yard is a bit of a hill, so the double driveway looks very big and very black to me... I've tried to arrange the front landscaping to draw the eye away from all that asphalt and toward the front door. That way, it looks more like "house with attached garage" rather than like "garage with house attached." LOL

I tend toward a hodge podge style in back, partly because I want one of everything I see at the nursery... but in the front, I wanted a slightly more formal style, so I tried to think in terms of sweeps of color and repeating textures. In spring, the front bed has a sweep of daffodils, with a "river" of grape hyacinths in front and other "little bulbs" (species tulips and crocus) along the front walk, plus several small azaleas in bloom. That gives way to the purple of the lavender hedge along the driveway and the burgundy of the lilies that curve down the center of the bed, with dwarf dianthus and creeping thyme on either side of the walkway. At some point, I'll get more blooms from the irises that are spaced every so often in front of the lilies. By late summer, most of the color is up near the front walk -- balsam impatiens and torenia in the foundation bed, and the white of the garlic chives in bloom.

Let's see if I can find a photo...