Background: We moved in our current house a year ago when I was about 7 months pregnant with our second child. Obviously not in the mood to do a lot of work. The backyard has a lot of just chaotic, viney planets and poison ivy, and this is to be all ripped out this weekend. Our focus currently is on the front.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v637/FaZizzle/House.jpg

That link shows a picture of our house, albeit a poor one. It’s from Google StreetView, if you were curious.

Now, we’re getting rid of the rock on the right of the driveway. It’s basically aquarium rock. It’s going to be replaced with grass and a sidewalk leading to our backyard. The hedge will also be removed.

It’s hard to see, but currently we have 5 box woods lining one side of our steps. The other is just rock and mulch. And those bushes under the window? Gone.

We want to brighten up the exterior, but right now it also needs to be fairly low-maintenance.
We’re not opposed to doing the work ourselves. We don’t necessarily need a landscaper to do the hard work. We need some inspiration and guidance here. We want it to look good instead of tacky, which is what I fear what it would turn out to be. I’ve roamed the local nurseries and have found some plants that may look good, but I am not really confident in myself or the 16 year old employee.

We have a budget of around $300. I’ve been looking around at local landscapers, but it’s hard to determine if this is even possible.

Does anyone have any insight?

We’ve checked out what seems like hundreds of landscaping books and websites, but nothing really screams out to us as possible. We live in Kansas, so in the summer it can easily reach 100 degrees and in the winter it can reach well below zero with ice and snow.