Gardening and Horticulture - Need to fill in a piece of land with something!! HELP!!

Hello,

I have recently just put grass into my front yard, and here comes the problem; I decided to leave a portion of dirt towards the front of the lawn to keep it for some kind of gardening space. Now, I dont know what I should put there. I was thinking about something nice and low maintanence. I was hoping that any of you garden pros could give me some pointers. My objective is to make it nice so, that if i could drive by the house. I would give it a thumbs up.

In order for you to see what the yard looks like, I drew up a quick overview of what the yard looks like. Please e-mail me at; darinph@hotmail.com

And I will be happy to send you the image, and hopefully, we can work from there. THanks for your help!! Hope my yard will look nice in a month or so :)

Mounded or raised beds can be quite stunning. Click the following link for Landscape Designs--Kidney Shaped Mound Planting:

http://www.whiterose.ca/howto/index.php3?cat=LANDSCAPE+DESIGNS

What is your zone? Do you want specific plant recommendations? What are the sun conditions? If you live in Alaska I wouldn't recommend the same plants than if you lived in Florida or Arizona. What style do you like (naturalistic, neat and tidy, etc) and what style and color is the house? How large is the area to be planted? Do you want the house totally obscured when they are mature or do you want to frame the house?

Here is a zip code zone finder.

http://www.gardenweb.com/zones/zip.cgi

A mix of shrubs, perennials and bulbs would look nice as long as they don't block your view when exiting the property at the driveway. Maybe even a specimen tree that blooms in the spring or summer. Something native that offers berries to birds or nectar to butterflies?

Newt