When guests pull into the driveway, they're instantly greeted by an inviting sight: an entry garden brimming with colors and textures. Greg Bobich of Designs by Sundown created the planting as part of a landscape makeover that turned a flat, blank space into a multilayered tapestry in Englewood, Colorado.

For year-round foliage interest, Bobich planted conifers including (from left to right) dwarf globe Colorado blue spruce ( Picea pungens 'Glauca Globosa'), mugho pine (Pinus mugo mugo), limber pine ( P. flexilis 'Vanderwolf's Pyramid'), and dwarf blue Scotch pine ( P. sylvestris 'Glauca Nana'). For summer flower color, he edged the bed with fuchsia, red, and white petunias, backed by yellow pansies and hardy perennials like Dianthus 'First Love' (far left), whose flowers change from white to deep rose, and 'Pink Mist' scabiosa (far right). Violet-blue agapanthus (center), a tender perennial, is treated as an annual.

Bobich also spiked the bed with clumps of crocosmia and irises, which show off their sword-shaped leaves before and after bloom. A Kansas limestone wall backdrops this bed and a nearly identical one on the other side of the driveway.

DESIGN: Greg Bobich, Designs by Sundown, Englewood, CO (303/789-4400)