Redoing my parents' yard

My parents recently moved back to Lexington from Bluffton and the house they move into... well, it's lacking to say the least. I've already done a lot of work whenever I come back from school, but there's still a lot to be done. Right now I'm getting to the point where its time to stop reclaiming the yard from the awful landscaping and time to start installing a decent one. I'm open to suggestions for different areas and I'll post the progress I make.

Here is the back before I cleared it out, and then after. I've since removed the switch cane as well. I can get a better picture of the final product tomorrow.

This message was edited Dec 28, 2012 11:31 PM

Here are the shrubs that were in front of the porch. Whoever planted those there was clearly not thinking. I got them from two angles to show how close to the porch they were planted. I pulled them out to plant some 'Otto Luyken' cherry laurels. The ligustrum and loropetalum rotted the porch because they were planted so close.

Wow! Yanking out those foundation plantings made a huge difference in the curb appeal. What did you use to get those things out of the ground?

Thanks! Just elbow grease and determination. Haha I just cut them down to stumps and then dug right around them until I hit roots and used loppers to cut the big roots. Then I just yanked them out if there weren't any big roots still attached that I couldn't get myself.

Save the lorapalutum,if I could have only one shrub this would be it

They're all at the dump now. The last owners had butchered them so much that they really couldn't be salvaged, and I'm not a fan of the giant purple meatball look. I have plans to put more in elsewhere, though.

I had to remove all of those plants because they were planted too close to the porch and it started to rot.

I dunnow, Sandlapper. A lot of difficult questions involved, like "who are you trying to please" with your design...? Lot of ramifications to that question, but it might help you to think them through...