1. Your landscaping should complement your home, not compete with it.  The most important element of your landscaping is your house itself.  Plantings should serve to frame and soften its architectural lines without being overpowering.

2. Avoid floating elements.  Try to anchor new planting beds to the house and other perimeter features.  Too many floating flowerbeds or isolated shrubs detract from the house and are unsettling to the eye.

3. Follow your head, not just your heart, when selecting plants.  Carefully analyze the microclimate of your property and choose plants that will do well in that exposure, soil type, etc.  Putting a plant in unfavorable conditions will almost certainly provide disappointing results.

4. Focus interest around the entryway by using color and/or fragrance.  Adding these features around entryways is welcoming to guests and neighbors.  Also consider your own enjoyment:  during a busy work week, you may only see the parts of the garden that are closest to your doorways.  Put the things you would enjoy seeing the most at those locations.

5. Consider flower features when picking trees and shrubs, but remember that their flowers usually only last a week or two.  Also consider general habit (i.e. shape), texture, foliage, fruiting, and fall color.  For example, a forsythia may be stunning during the few weeks in spring in which it is cloaked in blooms, but afterward it has little to offer.  Consider instead shrubs like viburnums which offer fragrant spring flowers, lush summer foliage, bright fall color, and interesting winter structure.

6.  Always consider ultimate size when choosing, positioning, and placing plants.  Be sure to carefully research the plants that you will be using in your design.  Sketch (or hire a professional to draw) a scaled plan taking into account the ultimate size of the plants used.  Use your plan as a planting guide to ensure proper spacing.  A complete landscape plan also will help you stay focused and on task as you develop your landscaping over several seasons.  Knowing the ultimate plan will help prevent you from succumbing to impulsive and poorly thought-out purchases at the garden center that do not fit into the big picture.