Foundation plantings are traditionally intended to screen the ugly cement foundations of houses. This, however, is a bit short sighted.
Creating a welcoming entrance to your garden is a more appropriate way to go about designing these secluded spaces. Entrance gardens are important as they integrate houses and gardens with a surrounding landscape.

Entrance gardens should be open and welcoming. They may be used to draw attention to architectural details or even screen architectural flaws. When deciding what to grow in an entrance garden, avoid planting rapidly growing plants because they will quickly become obtrusive and outgrow their allotted spaces, blocking views and obstructing access. Entrance garden are normally the front garden for most homes and benefit from colourful plants and flowers which have all year round interest, such as evergreens and deciduous shrubs with a lot of colourful autumn foliage and berries in the winter.

Specimen shrubs, like interesting flowering deciduous or a dwarf evergreen, will work well in an entrance garden. Use any specimen shrubs sparingly in your garden if you do this to avoid too much of the same look which is uninteresting.

Shrubs which run between entrance and corners of houses are most effective when they are designed to be simple. The low growing shrubs will generally work best as they don’t block views from windows. Taller shrubs will require frequent pruning and may often result in awkwardly shaped plants.