Well.....if that were my house or my client's house, first thing I would do is remove all the green shrubs up by the house. I think they really take away from the beauty of the house. I would have low growing annuals such as either vinca or begonias in the area between the drive and the house, and I would brick a good part of it and add classic benches for photos. Can you grow magnolias there? A magnolia might be a smoother counterpoint to the spruce trees. (Is that what they are?)
Outside the driveway area is where I would do a flower bed. I would use tall enough plants that the driveway blacktop would be hidden from the lawn, which kind of makes the house "float" in the flower beds. The view from the lawn would be much improved, and wedding photos would be grounded better.
A mix of neater grasses (such as the oft-used Karl Foerster grass), gladiolas, iris, lilies, cannas, roses and annuals would work if arranged where, say, all the iris or peonies were in one area so spring weddings could focus on that area, then farther down, summer plants grouped together for color later. Mixed borders are high maintenance, but unless you want to use all annuals or all foliage plants, you need to bunch the perennials by flowering time. A huge planting of white peonies would be lovely. There are a few white peonies that do bloom later that might hit the June wedding market. There are lower growing white hydrangeas that might work there too.
Something about those green shrubs just makes me want to scream. They just don't work.

Excellent suggestions Cindi! I'm not very fond of the boxwoods either, but I don't think I'd have luck convincing the owners to ditch them. They do effectively hide the cement foundation under the porch, but I can think of a lot of other plants I'd prefer for that use. The traditional historic use of boxwoods at old manor homes appeals to the owner. I get that, but they do verge dangerously close to "green meatballs" LOL. However I do think I could convince them to replace the blue spruces with magnolias- that would be gorgeous! And they bloom heaviest in June! The lawn space in front of the boxwoods is where I'd love to do gardens, but some ceremonies use that area (although if it weren't an option any longer, there is still plenty of usable space). The house emerging from a bed of flowers would be glorious! Perhaps some tall lilies and other flowers would detract from the shrubs, and use the dark green as a backdrop for pastel colored bloom.

That really is a beautiful house/estate !
The green meatballs definitely have to go. LOL

Neal, I didn't mean to suggest you remove the spruces. Not sure where to add the magnolias, but I think the smooth round leaves would help with the scale problem of huge house, little meatballs. Filling the spaces between the boxwoods with lilies short and tall sounds cool--what if you used a wide assortment of asiatics, orientals, orienpets, etc, all in white?
There are magnolia varieties that top out at 12', which would give you some layering.

The spruces are kind of thin and seem to be struggling a bit, likely due to compacted soil that wasn't prepared properly. The owners have discussed possibly removing them at some point if they don't recover. Adding magnolias would be great though! And they do love lilies (and so do I!), so they would love a design incorporating them.

Snowing like mad now and accumulating quickly!

Lots of snow expected here also. Supposed to snow all day Saturday.

In case anyone needs a flower fix, blooming this afternoon:

Black Forest



First Prize



Easy Does It

Wish we could get some snow. It's just dreary here, dreary and cold. A foot of bright, fluffy, sparkly snow blanketing all my shivering flowers would be a dream.

Debra,
your roses are beautiful, as always! My Black Forest doesn't look anything like yours. Is yours the Kordes rose? Mine is double, but the center part never really opens. It looks like a marble in the center. Maybe it's the camera...my rose is a true red, is yours? The camera always has problems reading red.

Cindi, yes, it is the Kordes and came from Palatine. Mine is red, just has the sun behind it this afternoon.

CindiKS said:Wish we could get some snow. It's just dreary here, dreary and cold. A foot of bright, fluffy, sparkly snow blanketing all my shivering flowers would be a dream.

Wish you could have ours!!

gemini_sage said:The spruces are kind of thin and seem to be struggling a bit, likely due to compacted soil that wasn't prepared properly. The owners have discussed possibly removing them at some point if they don't recover. Adding magnolias would be great though! And they do love lilies (and so do I!), so they would love a design incorporating them.

Neal ... I am growing a star magnolia as a shrub, which is how they are often grown in England. At least that was the plan until the deer chomp.

I am going to have to do some reshaping this spring after the bloom. That dang doe simply did not know the rules of good pruning ...

"That dang doe simply did not know the rules of good pruning."

I usually see star magnolias grown as large shrubs here too, but I think a small tree shape would be pretty! Life gives you lemons.... deer are horribly frustrating though, sorry you're having to deal with them.

Newyorkrita said:

Wish you could have ours!!

Saying now that we are going to have 24 inches of snow!!!

Debra ...

You would never imagine the damage one doe could do. It took three tries to finally get every possible entrance to the house pad garden blocked. We would block two or three and then she would find another one. We blocked the new entry point and then we would block any other block any other possible entrance point we had not thought of the first round. The she ate all of the vinca on the slope by the stairs going up from the street level and found a way under the fence. So we blocked the whole slope. Before we got that slope blocked, she managed to get into the fenced street rose ... Linda Campbell ... and deer pruned that rose. I do NOT know how she managed to get out of the deer cage.

Then some how she managed to push the deer cage surrounding the Cardnal Hume bed on the lawn level in to eat the front of that shrub and most of 'Margo Koster'. Once I fixed that problem, she decided to eat my star magnolia. She ate all of my blue eyed grass and all of the other "deer resistant" plants out in front of the house.

The only roses not deer pruned are the five in the top tier in front of the house. That deer cage held.

I know this is going to sound terrible, but I hope she gets hers. Last evening when I was up at the top of the slope checking the fence, I saw several cougar tracks. With all of this rain, it is pretty muddy, but not sloppy muddy up there. This is the first time I've seen cat tracks on my property. There's no doubt in my mind that they were cougar tracks. At least I could see that they were headed OUT of my property towards the deer trail on the other side of my deer fence up there.

Spring is coming and I'll have a lot of work reshaping everything.

I'd have been sorely tempted to have that doe in my freezer!

That's a thought.

Actually, she was just doing what deer do ... especially when they are very hungry because of the drought.

In a way, it's my fault she ever got into the garden because I had not checked that fence for a while. The section where the top rail came down is located at the top of the slope in the far back corner.

When my neighbor's grape vine died due to lack of water and the rail down, she found a way into the garden. Once in, she found deer candy.

The roses will come back because they all have good root systems. It's going to be interesting to see how they return because I have never given the roses such a hard prune.

Who knows ? Maybe she did me a favor with the roses, but she didn't have to go after my magnolia ...

Rooting for the cougar, then, Lyn. I always liked them better than deer, anyway.