Front Yard Landscaping Ideas: Our Top Five Tips
The best front yard landscaping ideas begin with the elements that you cannot change easily. Your driveway, walkways, stoop, porch and stairs are examples, along with the front of your house. While you might eventually want a complete remodel, today you are looking for color and curb appeal. Below you will see our top five suggestions for doing just those things.
Make Your Front Door Your Focal Point
You may have seen houses where the front yard is so busy or the plants are so large that the front door is practically invisible. This is not an inviting look. The landscape in front of your house should be something like a welcome mat. It will greet your guests and invite them into your home. Think about how the door and walkway look at night. Warm lighting that follows the walkway will lead your guests up to the porch. It also increases their safety. To attract daytime guests and add color, place potted plants on both sides of the door, space permitting of course. If they are too close to the walkway, it creates a crowded feeling.
Camouflage the Foundation
Your home’s foundation is a structural essential, but it might not be that attractive. Home landscaping ideas for camouflaging the foundation include planting low growing shrubbery and building flowerbeds. If you keep an eye out for elements like outdoor faucets and electrical outlets, you can build a simple short wall following the line of the foundation using mortar-less bricks in a weekend. Just add garden soil, plants and mulch to the area between the wall and the foundation to create a raised flowerbed. Laid out correctly, your door will still be the centerpiece.
Surround Existing Trees
Using the same color of mortar-less brick that you used to camouflage the foundation, you can create a low wall surrounding the existing trees on your property. This is one of the front yard landscaping ideas that serve two purposes.First, you have created another flowerbed to add color. Second, you have protected your tree trunks from weed eaters and lawnmowers.
Plan for 4-Season Color
By choosing the right bulbs, perennials and shrubbery, you can have a colorful yard all year long. You will need to check your planting zones to be sure, but these home landscaping ideas work in most parts of North America.You can find different bulbs for each season. Perennials like peony and foxglove bloom in the spring. Day lilies and lavender bloom in the summer. Aster and some varieties of sedum bloom in the fall. Trees like oak and maple provide beautiful fall color. Evergreen shrubs give color in the winter, as do holly and hawthorn berries. Some trees have colorful bark in the winter, as well. Crape myrtle is an example.
Use All of Your Resources
Books, magazines and software programs are a few of the resources you have to choose from. “Landscaping for Dummies” is a good book for beginners. Magazines like “Better Homes and Gardens” can provide you with new ideas on a monthly basis. Amazon.com gives 5 stars to their landscape and deck design software program, too.Television shows, internet websites and online courses complete your list of resources. If you’re still searching for front yard landscaping ideas after exhausting all of your resources, hiring a professional landscaper is always an option.
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