Landscaping ideas

Hoping there is someone on the forum who does landscape design, we moved into our new house in august of 2020 and haven't done ANYTHING with the outside yet. I've had three separate companies come out and look and SAY they will draw something up and get us a quote and none have delivered. Anyone here do that? Even if not professional want to give it a shot?

When we did ours. We took a picture of the house and the exposure direction to a large local greenhouse along with soil sample and they gave us a design and has worked very well for not a huge cost.

I did landscape design as a young man. Started in high school while working at nurseries and continued while getting degrees in arboriculture, environmental design, and city planning then worked for big landscape companies doing designs, estimates, and contracts for corporate headquarters. Got out of it mostly because it got to the point where I worked in an office with 3 ladies who did secretarial/bookkeeping/payroll type stuff and I didn't get to go outside other than on my way to contract meetings. Just couldn't picture myself working in an office the rest of my life. Worked on single family residences, small commercial buildings, condominium complexes to corporate headquarters. Where are you?

NW Ohio, 

Try contacting Ohio State in Wooster and see if someone in the Ag dept. there can help ya out. If I saw pics I could offer suggestions but I gave away my drafting table etc. when I moved South and never learned to do that work on computers like the cool kids do now.

When we built our house, it was just a house in the woods. I cleared areas for planting beds and did a lot of hard scape/rock & boulder work before any of the landscape/plant/tree planning. We walked around and figured where "WE" wanted planting areas, flower spots, ground cover, annuals, perennials and trees. Bringing in someone else to do your landscaping with flowers/plants that "they" like rather than what "we" like wasn't on my radar up front. We decided to build stacked stone walls to define planting areas and then visited many different nurseries and wholesale sellers in the spring and summer to see plants that were fully in bloom. This allowed her to figure out a color palate for different areas around the house and driveway.unfortunately this approach takes 2 seasons because by the time you bring the plants/flowers home, they are normally in the late stage of their bloom and things don't really come together until the next season.

Since I never updated this, we used an ancient guide from my wife's grandmothers house of what works well together in our area. All fun lol

this was last fall before I replanted the lawn. Has filled out quite a bit since then.

Looks fine to me.   low maintenance!

We hired a landscape architect to come up with an overall plan for our property, which we implemented in three phases over the course of several years to spread out the cost. Our guy does his own installation work and also referred us to a "mow and blow" landscaper for regular clean-ups, etc.

Landscape architects sometimes take a more holistic view of a property, and may have contacts with local landscape companies to get them to be responsive...

I've been returning my very small patch of property to the native plants that are equipped to live here (central Texas).  It also helps that I don't have an officious HOA to deal with.  Net result:  almost no outdoor water use, no fertilizers, very little yard work, and months of blooming flowers to feed the pollinators and birds.  My wife and I love it, and one of the neighbors is starting to do the same.

I'm a whiz at design, but pretty poor at picking plants that would succeed.

I would go asymmetrical with that island.  Maybe some sky pencils or tall/skinny Junipers on the left, something low-maintenance in the middle, and some creeping yew on the right.  The asymmetry will draw you to the right, and as you round the cul-de-sac, you'll have a lovely view of the whole thing like a scenic backdrop.

My skills with MSpaint are amazing... I know.

You could do what all of my neighbors did and install a Gold-clad, solid-Bronze, 50 foot tall statue of me with chainsaw arms in the center of the driveway loop there.

You're welcome.