Ideas Landscaping Front Yard
Use landscaping to create an inviting entryway to your home.
You can increase your home’s curb appeal, beautify your neighborhood and create a welcoming entryway to your home by distinctively landscaping your front yard. Keep several factors in mind when designing the front yard, including the style of your home and the amount of time you’ll have to spend on landscape maintenance.
Create a Clear Entryway
Your front door should be easily identifiable, with a clear pathway leading to the entrance. “Fine Gardening” recommends building a pathway wide enough to let two people walk side by side. The walkway can be built with materials such as poured concrete, pavers, bricks or stones. The path can be straight, leading from the driveway or street to the door, or curved to wind throughout the yard’s decorative elements.
Create a Low-Maintenance Design
Design a yard you can handle. Planting a full, lush front yard only works in the long-term if you have the right climate and the time to keep up with it. Gardeners short on time should consider planting low-maintenance plants or following a xeriscaping design. Xeriscaping relies on drought-tolerant plants such as Blue mist spirea (Caryopteris x clandonensis), hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture zones 6 through 9. These heat-tolerant perennials have few problems and bloom with blue flowers throughout summer. Other low-maintenance options include butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii), feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora “Overdam”) and succulents such as Black Hens and Chicks (Sempervivum “Black”).
Start at the Foundation
Create multiseason interest along the foundation of your home. Foundation plantings such as boxwoods (Buxus sempervirens), camellias (Camellia spp.) or rhododendrons (Rhododendron spp.) are a good place to start when you design your front yard. As an added bonus, flowering shrubs lend visual interest and can be pruned easily to maintain their size and shaping. Intersperse flowering perennials and shrubs with evergreens to create year-round appeal and add contrasting textures to planting beds. Container-grown annuals can be placed in foundation planting beds or flank your entryway. Containers allow you to easily and quickly update the front yard with seasonal plants.
Natural Privacy Screens
Plant evergreen hedges to create privacy where you need it. Fences can be attractive and functional, but natural privacy screens can form a seamless part of the landscape. Options include Hillspire juniper (Juniperus virginiana “Cupressifolia”), hardy in USDA zones 4 through 9. Hillspire juniper grows 10 to 15 feet tall and 6 to 8 feet wide. Once it is established, it needs minimal watering or other maintenance. Another option is Le Ann Cleyera (Ternstroemia gymnanthera “Contherann”), hardy in USDA zones 7 though 11. This evergreen features glossy foliage and grows 10 to 12 feet tall.
