Add value to your home by increasing curb appeal with attractive, functional front yard landscaping ideas. Opt for traditional front yard landscaping such as foundation shrubs, add a more modern architectural look with specimen plants, or choose a breezy cottage plan. Check out these gorgeous entry gardens to find the secret to putting your best front-yard face forward.
Walkway Front Yard Landscaping Ideas
Transform your front walk into a stylish statement by edging it in easy-care plants such as variegated hosta and boxwood. Conjure even more magic by putting a slight curve in the path, giving your walkway a soft, gentle look.
Test Garden Tip
Choose an interesting material to make the trip to your front door even more memorable. Bricks, flagstone, and pavers all lend more charm than traditional cement.
Fill Your Yard with Flowers
Planting colorful bloomers is a surefire way to make your yard feel more welcoming. Use bold, bright hues to create a significant impact even if you don't have a lot of space. A cottage-style plan can include various perennials in a small yard.
Test Garden Tip
Check your municipality's rules for planting on the parking strip (that patch of ground between the street and the sidewalk). Some communities may have restrictions on how tall plants can be or how far away you should plant from a fire hydrant.
Leave Space to Entertain
Another great front yard landscaping idea that feels welcoming is adding a patio. As with the front porches of days gone by, you can sit back and wave to neighbors while enjoying a cold glass of lemonade on a summer evening.
Test Garden Tip
Decorate your front yard patio with a skirt of flowers or a small hedge to help it seem more intimate and enclosed— without making an unfriendly barrier.
Beautify a Slope
Grassy slopes can be hard to maintain, so a front yard landscaping idea for a hilly property is to turn it into a beautiful display of foliage and flowers. Keep it easy to care for by covering the slope with your favorite plants. The plantings rising to the house make it appear grander.
Test Garden Tip
Mix groundcovers, grasses, evergreens, annuals, and perennials to create a planting that looks good all year.
5 Easy Front Yard Landscaping Ideas
Try these tricks to boost your front yard landscape in no time.
Let Nature be Your Guide
Embrace nature's instincts in your yard simply by following its lead. Select plants and other landscape materials native to your region. The birds and butterflies your front yard attracts will enchant you and your guests.
Test Garden Tip
Incorporate a birdbath or bird feeder in your yard to attract even more birds.
Green Front Yard Landscaping Ideas
Plant a variety of evergreens to keep your yard looking classically beautiful through all the seasons. Choose from groundcovers, dwarf shrubs, and large trees. Plus, evergreen foliage offers a wealth of textures and colors.
Test Garden Tip
Be sure to select evergreens that mature at the size you want, so your yard won't end up an overgrown mess.
Create a Buffer
Pack a small front yard with medium-sized plants to help shield the home from street noise. Growing a variety of plants makes the yard look larger by giving your eye more textures, colors, and shapes.
Test Garden Tip
Spend time looking out from your windows as you design. That way, you will enjoy the view looking out as much as passersby enjoy looking into the garden.
Use Containers
A container garden provides a riot of color even if your front yard is primarily paved. A handful of large pots filled with bright or fragrant flowers transforms your front landscape into a work of art.
Test Garden Tip
Install a simple drip irrigation system to make containers easier to maintain.
Break It Up
Many homeowners think of their front yard as one band of land between the sidewalk and the home. However, you can make landscape magic by breaking it up with perpendicular plantings. A curved border, for example, adds a note of grace and elegance.
Test Garden Tip
If you have an unattractive driveway, use a border such as this to partially hide it from view.
Use Space Smartly
Small city properties aren't limited to foundation shrubs and postage-stamp lawns. The front yard landscaping idea here features a layered look with a variety of sizes and shapes for an eye-catching landscape.
Test Garden Tip
Repeat an element to bring continuity to the design and keep the landscape from looking helter-skelter.
Emphasize the Entry
Lacking height or grand proportions, small ranch-style homes can sometimes be lost in the shuffle. However, good landscaping gets them noticed. For example, use an ornamental arbor or fence to call attention to the house and mark the entrance.
Test Garden Tip
White structures stand out even more against colorful flowers and a nonwhite home.
Blend Nature and Art
Blend natural and artificial elements to give your yard an established, comfortable look. For example, place boulders near the path and use groundcovers such as pachysandra. Flowering shrubs, such as azalea, rhododendron, and pieris, soften the look of the stone.
Test Garden Tip
Look for features from your home to guide your design. Small trees can echo pillars on a porch, for example, or use a water feature based on the shape of one of your home's architectural elements.
Play Up the Drama
Select bold elements that call attention to themselves to help your landscape make a statement. For example, spiral-pruned junipers flanking the front walk create a sense of grandeur and formality.
Test Garden Tip
Be sure your house fits in with the drama you build in your landscape. The example shown here might have been overpowered if not for the bright blue front door.
Plant a Tapestry
Elements of your home sometimes provide clues about where to take the landscaping. In this case, the intricate brick-and-stone detailing calls for a similarly decorative landscape. The lines of the low boxwood hedge echo the architecture of the porch and lend an air of formality.
Test Garden Tip
Play off colors, as well. Try a garden that contains the same colors as your home—or create contrast by going to the opposite side of the color wheel.
Create a Fork
Give guests an enticement to walk through your garden by splitting your path. That way, more sections of your landscape are accessible for inspection.
Test Garden Tip
Be sure to include some fragrant varieties to add to your landscape's sensory appeal.
More Great Ways to Boost Curb Appeal
Watch for high-impact ways to make your landscape the best on the block!