Help me with plants for the front of my house please!

I just sent this pic to DawnLL's "My 3 babies . . . " thread and it got me thinking: we've had this house for about 5 years now (it replaced a 200-year old burned-down farmhouse) and I still don't know what to put in front of the foundation. I absolutely hate (no offense) traditional shrubs in front of a house. It faces East, so the left side also gets the South sun too. Any suggestions?
(I was just noticing that most of my garden photos I take either have a weed bucket or a hose or something in the pic!)

How about daylilies, coreopsis, coneflowers, daisies??? Those are some perennial suggestions. Good luck on making some decisions. I love planning new gardens.

The first thing I would say is that foundation plants are not really necessary. If you do want them, do you want evergreen plants? That cuts down the possibilities, but there are still things that are more unusual than rhodies.

You could check some of the gardening magazines. I've never tried any of their plans but they look good and everything is planned out. You just have to choose the look you want. They can get your creative juices also flowing if you want to plan your own - gives you ideas of all the varieties of plants and what will grow best in your zone, type of soil, and exposure. I think the magazine "Garden Gate" even gives you several options of plants in their designs. ( That's the one I'm reading in right now and I think I remember seeing alternate plantings in that magazine ) Magazines can at least get you thinking about what you would like. Eleanor

Dave, I just basically want to hide the foundation. We have a modest Cape and an old barn on a 1-1/2 acre hillside lot. We have a loooooong (1/4 mile) driveway going downhill on one side of the house. My father-in-law built a development on the other side of us, so the "front" of the house faces these half-million+ dollar homes. We lucked out getting a right of way onto the development and have a back driveway going that way! Otherwise, I wouldn't give a hoot what it looks like.

What do you guys thing of putting a low picket fence right in front of the foundation, on either side of the stairs? Ooooh, then I can plant more flowers in front of the fence! (Like I need an excuse to plant more flowers!)

Sounds good to me! I think traditional foundation planting is overdone too. Don't know when we all got so embarrassed by our foundations anyway ;^)

Well aside from perennials, which will leave it bare for long stretches, you can use short shrubs that are not traditional - not Azaleas, Rhodos, Yews, Boxwood, etc.

Sarcococca is a shot, winter blooming, fragrant evergreen. Daphne is another possibility. Deciduous ones include various Viburnums, Itea 'Little Henry', Fothergilla, Clethra. The list can go on. A mixed bed of lows shrubs, bulbs and perennials is always nice.

I agree with everyone. As long as you have what you like first and foremost, mix up shapes and textures, spiky and clumping, different foliage color and times and color of bloom, I think you will have a lovely border against your little picket fence. Sounds very cute to me.