Driveway Landscaping

After five years of mental anguish, I've finally figured out how to landscape my long driveway.

Fascinating stuff, I know.

Dead(ish) Dogwood Tree

It's funny how big trees are when you have to drag them to the compost pile.

No obstruction of the sky anymore.

The problem is, we have one of those driveways that goes between other houses and our place is set back from the street. It's sloped and the beds on either side of the driveway are a little higher than the drive. This means that when it rains, which happens daily here in Seattle, lots of debris flows where it shouldn't.
Also, in my neighborhood, the front yards all have a "community" feel. They flow into each other, so putting up some property divider seemed unneighborly...

Long story short, I've decided to put a 5 foot panel of 4 foot tall picket fence on either side and halfway down the driveway to separate the "driveway" from the "front yard." This creates a visual barrier and a feeling of being in the community, and then entering onto our property. Equally, the pretty, little fence has a "go away" and "welcome" aspect that I like.

How a Dogwood tree is supposed to look.

Dogwood Trees have pretty, white flowers.

Before the fence can be installed though, there was work to be done on the driveway. I had frost-damaged Dogwoods that were an eyesore. I got a quote to have them chopped, but grew impatient and pulled out my electric 12'' saw last week. Talk about therapy. Chop-chop. I hacked all the trees down and made a big mess with the branches, but not having the trees of death to welcome me home was worth the soreness in my hands the following few days.

I still need to pull some dead ornamental grass out of the driveway landscaping and rake the pine needles up before the next phase (adding ground cover), but instead, I woke up to a winter wonderland on Saturday. 

Snow... just in time for Christmas, in March.