Part of the small front garden area.

The hydrangeas have changed colour because of your soil
I found this quote for you,::
'It is much easier to change a hydrangea from pink to blue than it is from blue to pink. Changing a hydrangea from pink to blue entails adding aluminum to the soil. Changing from blue to pink means subtracting aluminum from the soil or taking it out of reach of the hydrangea.' There are products you can feed your plant with to do the above. If you are putting a picket fence along the front path that would be nice to border with lavendar all the way along, great for the bees in summer too.

Is the frontage too long to put in a series of arches along the front. You could then grow clematis and roses on the arches and maybe make fairly wide beds with hardy perennials in them like lupins, paeony roses, etc. i like the idea of a small border hedge each side of the path to the front door. You could plant spring bulbs in there too.

The frontage is very wide .... I know that because the picket fence is going to cost several thousand dollars to put up, & that is with us buying the materials .... as the property sits on the crest of a hill, that frontage slopes down, so a brick or concrete retainer wall has to go in first, which is why it will be so costly ... the brick one currently in place is cracked in several places. I love lupins & paeony roses ... have never attempted to grow a paeony as I was told when I lived in England that they were really tricky. They might be easier here & they are definitely on my wish list ... which incidently is growing longer with each passing hour! I love arches also, & we plan to put one over the front picket gate ... but I would rather like an ornate square one, rather than the more usual curved one, as we will have a curved arch over the gate-entry into the back area, & another curved arch where the front area runs around into the side driveway area ... well that's my plan at this point. so I thought an ornate square arch over the front gate, with clematis or rose climbing over it, would be rather lovely. Are you meaning a border hedge of buxus? I had thought of that too, but thought a lavender hedge might look prettier?

Grandmage .... thankyou for that info on the hydrangeas. At least two out of the three turned into the most glorious rich crimson shade, with the other being pink mottled with cream, & as they have been planted so close together, it took a while for me to realize there was more than just one bush. I had never seen a hydrangea in that colour before & it was absolutely beautiful. My OH might have been thinking about the hydrangea in our previous garden, which was blue. I will be watching it carefully this summer ... all three seem to be late flowering. I have seen a garden with a picket fence along the front & pink roses spilling out over the top, with lavender sprouting through the picket spaces below. It look truly lovely, & I think that is a great idea. So I might run with that, & then perhaps put a dwarf buxus hedge border from the front gate up to front porch .... that is only a run of around 10 feet, as we are very close to the pavement, but very little foot traffic & the pavement is very wide, & thankfully this is not a main road, so not much traffic on it either.

No not buxus I was agreeing with your idea of the lavender. If you do not go with either of those there is a shrub 'sarcococca confusa' which is winter flowering and it has a wonderful scent. It spreads by runners so if you bought just one and kept splitting it you could eventually have it along both sides of the path. I dk what your budget is like for doing the garden but i think you have been wise to spend the money on the fencing as it will add so much to the garden ambiance. Or how about an informal hedge of low growing hebe or potentilla shrubs. They flower from spring through to the first frosts. They have buttercup type flowers in various colours.