Ranch Home Landscape Design

Ranch homes are simple in their exterior design.

A front garden that suits the style of your ranch home complements your home and enhances its appeal. Ranch homes are simple in their design, providing the full layout of the home on one floor. This style of house lends itself to designs that augment the simplicity of the home’s architectural style without appearing too spartan. When designing, focus not just on plantings, but also on how guests move from the street to the front door, providing hardscaping that supports the color palette and design aesthetic of the home and garden.

Plan a pathway. Curving paths soften the sometimes hard lines of a ranch-style home. Straight lines support a modernistic garden aesthetic.

Plant woolly thyme (Thymus pseudolanuginosus) at the edge of the walkway as it requires little water and tolerates being crushed underfoot. It is suitable to U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 5 through 9. Plant in sun with well-drained soil for best results.

Plant New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) to add visual interest to your front garden. Plant at the edge of a border or lawn to incorporate red-, chocolate- and cream- striped, spiked leaves into your palette. This plant is suitable to USDA zones 9 through 11 when planted in fertile, moist soil.

Plant lawn composed of drought-tolerant grasses, such as zoysia grass (Zoysia japonica “Meyer”) to provide ample green space in the front of your ranch home. This grass tolerates drought and is non-flowering. It is suitable to USDA zones 5 through 10.

Place containers on the steps leading to your front door to both denote the entry for guests and extend the garden design. Use plants that tolerate a mix of shade and sun, such as Marjorie Channon Kohuhu (Pittosporum tenuifolium “Marjorie Channon”). This shrub thrives in containers in USDA zones 8 through 11, forming a variegated compact shrub up to 12 inches tall.

Source: homeguides.sfgate.com