I have been working for a long time on a design for my front yard and I was hoping to get some comments and constructive criticism. This is my first home, I moved in two years ago, and the property is a little over half an acre. We have a generous back yard that I plan on landscaping in a low-maintenance, low-water, meadow style, we have a large dog and she needs plenty of room to run and play and the back yard is going to be the space for that. We have a privacy fence along the front, separating it into a roadside area and an enclosed front yard, the roadside will be planted with low-maintenance, low-water plants and the inside will be my area to play. I want to have a beautiful Secret Garden type rose and flower garden with a fountain as a focal point and a little sitting area in the shady spot in the back.
Because there is parking on the inside and outside of the fence, and outside both to the north and south of the gate, people approach the house from many different directions. I struggled with a way to accommodate that without having too many paths and I ended up choosing to have a very wide front walk that has a little 'fang' of steppable groundcover to break up the hardscape. It needs to be nice and wide because every once in a while a car needs to back up into that space.
I haven't chosen a material for the hardscape yet, stone is my favorite but if it is too expensive I will use concrete pavers. Although I really think it would be worth it to wait and save up money to get stone. There is an existing concrete path along the front and side of the house, it is only three feet wide and is cracked in several places and I would like to widen and improve it somehow.
The plan is drawn to scale, the area of the main part of the front yard is 52' x 22'. The left side is North and the right side is South, the top is East and the bottom is West. Right now the fountain is only two tiers and 4' diameter, but when we are ready to re-do the front yard we are going to add the optional pool bottom that has a 6' diameter and makes the fountain three tiers. I have a bird feeder in the yard and it gets visited by many pretty little birds, we enjoy watching them very much. I think that is all the info you will need to know, sorry it's so long winded!
Here are the plans I drew as well as a picture of the front yard as it is now, the picture was taken from a spot by the garage looking towards the back corner.
[img]https://i454.photobucket.com/albums/qq268/momo2820/Landscape%20Drawings/wideview2.png[/img]
[img]https://i454.photobucket.com/albums/qq268/momo2820/Landscape%20Drawings/smallcolorplan.png[/img]
[img]https://i454.photobucket.com/albums/qq268/momo2820/fence3.jpg[/img]
Please tell me what you think, any and all advice will be appreciated!