Be creative with home landscapes, foundation planting

Planting in front of your house is easy, right? Plant three to five evergreens of the same kind in a row to hide the concrete foundation. Your only decision is whether to prune them in the shape of a square, a ball, or let them grow naturally and then cut a shelf across the top.

Foundation planting can be so much better! Plants should softly 'hug' the house, not overpower it. They should welcome visitors and act as a transition zone from outside to inside. They should be pretty and interesting.

Evergreen shrubs

Evergreens play an important part in foundation plantings. They offer substance year round and may be the only green to be seen in winter.

I have one yew (Taxus x media) included in my foundation planting. Its dark green needles play a supporting role spring, summer and fall, but in winter it provides welcome color between my window boxes.

Yews perform in shady and partly shady sites. The variety, Tautonii, grows 3 to 4 feet tall and about 5 feet wide.

Boxwood (Buxus) is another option for a shaded foundation. They are best planted where they will be sheltered from winter winds. Green Velvet is a 2- to 4-foot mound of dark green, shiny evergreen leaves. Or choose Glencoe. The Chicago Botanic Garden selected this cultivar for its excellent cold hardiness. It grows 3 to 4 feet tall and 5 feet wide.

If the front of your house basks in the sun, globe arborvitaes are a better choice. Little Giant grows 4 feet tall and wide. Its rich green lacelike foliage rarely needs pruning.

Junipers also thrive in full sun. Blue Star is a low, broad, dense evergreen shrub. Young foliage is rich blue. It grows 3 feet tall and up to 4 feet wide.

Shrub euonymus (Euonymus fortunei) can be planted in either location - sun or part shade. Blondy is a compact selection - only 2 feet tall and wide - with evergreen yellow leaves edged in dark green. In winter, yellow stems turn reddish and foliage is tinged with pink and purple.

Emerald Gaiety is another variegated variety. Its bright green leaves have white margins that blush pink in winter.

A pleasing foundation planting could be designed using just a variety of evergreens, but why not consider other plants to create a planting that changes with the seasons.

Deciduous shrubs

Don't overlook deciduous shrubs. Many offer flowers, fall color, or both.

Small hydrangeas are a welcome addition if you can give them protection from hot afternoon sun. The Endless Summer family offers many fine choices. Endless Summer, the hydrangea that started the frenzy, shows off magnificent blooms for three months or more beginning in mid summer. The flowers will be blue if you add soil sulfur to make your soil more acidic, or do like I do and enjoy the soft pink blooms. It's the perfect size for a foundation planting - 3 or 4 feet tall and wide.

Similar in size, Twist-n-Shout also produces lots of blooms all summer long. Pink or blue petals (depending on your soil) surround deep pink centers. Its deep green leaves turn reddish burgundy in the fall.

Blushing Bride offers pure white flowers that blush pink as they mature.

Dwarf Fothergilla is another good choice for a spot in full sun or part shade. White, bottlebrush honey-scented flowers appear in spring and fall color is a fiery mix of yellow, orange and red. It prefers acidic soil, but tolerates our northern Illinois soils.

Blue Mist has pretty blue foliage, but the fall color is less intense. It grows 2 to 3 feet tall. Mt. Airy is a larger selection - at least 4 feet tall, has bluish-green leaves, but incredible color in fall.

Give Virginia Sweetspire (Itea 'Henry's Garnet') full sun to part shade, and it will give you large white flower spikes that attract butterflies in early summer and spectacular scarlet foliage in fall. It grows 3 to 4 feet tall.

Spirea 'Tor' grows 2 to 3 feet tall in a dense, compact mound in full sun. Clusters of white flowers cover the foliage in late spring. Dark blue-green leaves, lovely all summer long, change to orange, red and purple in fall.

Perennials

Large perennials are also possible candidates for a foundation planting.

Hostas offer large, colorful leaves to a shady location. Regal Splendor and Blue Angel have a home in my foundation planting.

Regal Splendor is a large, vase-shaped hosta with soft blue leaves margined in creamy yellow. Mine is 30 inches tall and about 4 feet wide.

Blue Angel is a mound of huge blue, corrugated leaves. It tops out just less than 3 feet tall and is almost 5 feet wide.

Blue star (Amsonia tabernaemontana) gives three seasons of interest. In spring, steel blue, star-like flowers shine atop 3-foot stems; erect clumps of dull green, willow-like leaves look like shrubs in summer; and in fall, foliage turns a delightful shade of yellow. Plant blue star in full sun or light shade.

Another sun-lover, false blue indigo (Baptisia australis), boasts four seasons of interest. Purple flower spikes bloom in spring; pretty blue green, clover-like foliage cover the 3- to 4-foot shrublike perennial in summer; seedpods turn black and rattle with fall and winter winds.

Ornamental grasses

Ornamental grasses provide texture year round. If my foundation planting were in full sun, I'd choose Karl Foerster feather reed grass (Calamagrostis acutiflora). It has a wonderful upright growth habit - a perfect contrast to rounded shrubs. Its feathery plumes emerge earlier than other grasses and ripen to wheat colored seed heads in fall.

Hameln dwarf fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides) is compact and fine-textured. It grows 2 feet tall and wide. Buff colored seed heads pop up in late summer.

National Arboretum fountain grass is an arching mound of soft, bright green leaf blades. Unique, near black seed heads appear just above the foliage in late summer.

Mix and match evergreen and deciduous shrubs, large perennials and ornamental grasses to create a beautiful and interesting foundation planting. All that's left to do is to plant some bulbs for early spring color!

• Diana Stoll is a master gardener and the retail manager of The Planter's Palette, 28W571 Roosevelt Road, Winfield, IL 60190. Call (630) 293-1040 or visit planterspalette.com.