Since winter is a great time to plant, many of you may want to consider making improvements to your landscape now. There are many aspects to designing the landscape for your home. One of the first things you want to do is pick out the accent area of your home. The main focal area to consider is the front door, since it is usually the main entrance into the house. In order to draw attention to this area, using the correct type of plants at other parts of your foundation is essential. At each corner of the house, plant a taller growing evergreen shrub such as Nellie Stevens Holly, Fosteri Holly, Slender Hinoki Cypress or an Arborvitae. Make sure you plant far enough away from the house to allow for proper growth. The next area to look at is on each side of the front door. Use a lower growing plant than the corner plants. A couple of examples would be Steeds Holly, Emerald Green Arborvitae, or an American Boxwood. The idea of these two areas is to bring focus to the front door. To continue the design, the next area to consider is the foundation plantings. You want to make sure that the plantings stay below the window sills. A few good plants to use for windows that are two feet off the ground are Helleri Holly, Carissa Holly, Soft Touch Holly, Dwarf Yaupon Holly, Autumn Embers Encore Azalea, Dwarf English Boxwood or Creeping and Frost-proof Gardenia. For windows that are, three to four feet off the ground consider using Compacta Holly, Dwarf Burfordi Holly, Otto Luyken Laurel, Daisy Gardenia or Nandina. For windows that are five feet or taller try using Cleyera, Needle Point Holly, Chindo Viburnum, Anise or August Beauty Gardenia. The next area to consider in you landscape is installing plants in front of the foundation plants. You want to create a step down effect. Use lower growing plants with a different leaf texture. The size of these plants is dependent on the size of the foundation plants that are used.

Come by and let one of the garden center professionals show you the different options that are available. You may want to have our professional landscape designer create a custom plan designed for your needs. Happy Gardening.