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Front lawn landscaping is among the most important household tasks for every home owner, as it dictates the first impression their house is going to make.
Front yard garden design is a creative DIY project where you get to choose the landscape ideas you like, be it planting your favorite flowers, or investing in colorful shrubs and retaining walls.
The simplest trick for cute and simple front yard landscaping is planting trees, which can either be cheap using the yard’s natural potential, or more expensive by migrating a chosen type of plant.
If lacking inspiration, simply browse the internet for front yard landscaping pictures, and read our catchy appeal ides and practices gathered from the best front yard designs around the world.
Front yard landscape ideas can and will be the getaway from expensive interior design projects, and deserve all the attention you can devote them.
Front yard landscaping plans
Image source: Wingren Landscape
There are many homeowners around the world who start decorating their place from the outdoor are, and there is a good reason for it. It is exteriors that people see first, and what the family daydreams about after a busy working day.
Let us suggest few practical landscaping ideas for front yards:
Image source: Giffin & Crane General Contractors, Inc.
- Lay out your walks in the direction of natural access patterns. Failing to do so forces pets and children to carve alternative patterns right where they are not supposed to (your petunias, for instance). An important moment in front yard landscape design is to keep things simple, even if that means paving a straight and less charming path than one would wish for.
- Keep brown sections out. We understand it is way easier to keep mower blades lower and spare yourself some maintenance effort, but cutting more than 1 inch of your grass will cause the remains to go brown. Using a dull blade is a much smarter idea.
- Steps, curves, and jogs only when necessary: the best front yard ideas are those where owners managed to balance between appeal and functionality, mostly with 36-inches walks or 42-54 inches for two people to move comfortably. You can also add some extra width to the curves to make the path visually interesting.
- Preserve the brittle grass. Dry ground can make your blades snap or look withered, so test the soil with a screwdriver before you’ve applied them. Ideally, the screwdriver should go in easily and reach a depth of at least six inches. If not, try hauling out the hose.
- Add visual interest to your walks with hedges or small walls, ideally lower than 2 feet to ensure people can move comfortably with luggage and packages. Keep the ground-filled buffer zone between the walk and the vertical construction, and fill it with flowers.
- Get rid of yellow patches. Being completely honest, doing so can be a challenge, unless you have enough time to follow your dog around and spot all the places where it likes to urinate. Icky pet urine may be a nitrogenous fertilizer, but it will only help if applied in concentrated amounts. In all other cases, douse the spot with hose, and reseed if necessary.
- To make walking paths more interesting, consider exposed textures and brick patterns. The palette of options is quite impressive: concrete walks can be easily covered with slate, brick, or tile, while those who are not afraid to redo their paths each time traffic starts showing off can consider wooden chips as well.
- Go for an edible rather than a unified ground cover. Plant herbs here and there, and make your own wintergreen garden. We recommend berries and leafy lettuce plants, but we warn you those can’t withstand the same foot traffic as regular grass can.
Simple landscaping ideas for borders and edges
Image source: NLH Landscape Architects
Landscaping is not all about hauling and planting. What matters even more is how you will outline your garden, and which forms, colors, and textures you will use to complete that task.
If you want a traditional and neat look, lay bricks in concrete curbs, or lay timbers and flagstone tiles instead. All of them are available in shops and gardening centers, so you won’t even have to make ones of your own.
A more serviceable and affordable solution is to purchase rubber/metal strips, but note that those won’t look as cute as the other edging options we mentioned.
Instead of installing firm fences and borders, divide the area using bulbs and plants. Lay them down paying attention to spread and appearance: if the flowers are planted too close to the walk, they will eventually overgrow it.
The ‘hardscaping’ concept
Image source: Sarah Greenman
If you find front yard landscaping ideas too complicated to execute, consider rocklike covers such as gravel and slate tiles.
Purchase a piece of landscaping fabric, and place it underneath to prevent re-growth. This is the best course of action for drought-prone regions, but also a handy solution for lazy gardeners who wish to skip replanting.
Impactful trees
Image source: Earth Developments, Inc.
Think of all the best front yard landscaping ideas pictures you’ve seen: Which is the element that attracts most attention?
In creative gardening, the rule is ‘the larger the better’ which is why we believe every front yard needs trees to improve its appearance. The reason is that large shrubs frame the view and intrigue the observer to discover the rest.
Obviously, you are not expected to turn your front yard into a forest, but rather to strengthen the permanence effect with few trees on each side of your house.
If you’re lucky enough to have a couple of tall and mature trees softening the roofline to the sky, keep them in place. In the best case, you can use them as the boundaries between your functional areas.
Framing, nevertheless, is not the only beneficial effect of planting trees in your front yard: they make up the landscape masses together with the building, add texture and color, provide extra shade during sunny seasons, and control the income of natural energy inside the house.
The most passionate gardeners can even harmonize the plants’ shapes and sizes, and make their own pyramidal, round, or weeping leans.
This solution, however, doesn’t provide the same visual relief as varying leaf sizes do, so check which one looks better.
Landscaping ideas for front yard
On-budget landscaping
Image source: Boxleaf Design, Inc.
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If you prefer to stay on the cheaper side, make a simple walkway and trim the grass around it to make it more beautiful. For extra color, plant some of your favorite flowers, and keep it tidy.
Up-to-date landscaping
Image source: Amelia B. Lima & Associates, INC.
Minimalism is no longer an interior concept: it has pushed its way in front yard landscaping as well, making gardeners exclude as many plants and flowers as possible.
Pavers and stepping stones
Image source: Brent Gibson Classic Home Design
Solid pavements are no longer trendy: instead, home owners choose to beautify their front yards with cut out pavers and mosaic pathways, ideally interspersed using round stones.
Borrow cuttings from your friends
Image source: Marino Custom Homes, LLC
Most plants and flowers take as much as a small cut to grow from it, which will cut your landscaping expenses more than you can imagine.
Instead of heading to the nursery and spending on expensive seedlings, talk to friends who share the same hobby, and ask them for a cutting of the foliage you’ve always admired.
Note that many beautiful flowers including butterfly bushes and succulents need a clipping to grow, and will spruce up the cuteness of your exterior for free.
Plant some perennials
Image source: David Morello Garden Enterprises, Inc.
Creative gardeners who have enough time and will to renew their floral cultures each year should consider seasonal perennials.
These annual plants do a very good job for cutting expenses, together with the fact that they refresh the garden, and give it a brand new look season per season.
A floral welcoming
Image source: designername
Flowers don’t only cheer the family, but they also salute guests with color, warmth, and a homey atmosphere. We recommend you to adorn your front yard area with Lily-of-the-Nile, Gertrude Jekyl roses, Petunias, and Snapdragons.
If the space allows it, put a low fence to mark the entrance of our front yard: a cut pathway surrounded by flowers and vines will make your home look like the cutest getaway from urban chaos.
Don’t forget lighting
Image source: SDG Architecture, Inc.
Tuck lights around the pathway to make it visible the night, so that people moving after dark won’t have any safety concerns.
Keep it simple
Image source: Envision Landscape Studio
There are many opportunities to improve the looks of your front yard, but that can be just as challenging as it is useful: the more elements you add to your garden the more stuffed and organized it will look, so try to pick only those faucets that are really necessary.
Tropical front yards
Image source: Botanical Visions
A tropical scenario is applicable in warmer regions, ideally with a large front/backyard that can accommodate lavish palm trees and canopy beds.
Add interest the cheap way, using gravel
Image source: Chalet
You may not be the biggest gravel fan, but this is the most affordable durable and easy-to-maintain materials.
You can use it to fill heavily trafficked areas, gaps between flower types, or even to cover drainage problems.
At the same time, gravel looks way more elegant than someone would expect from a low-cost material.
A garden with cinder blocks
Cute vegetable gardens are not completely out of style. As a matter of fact, they can add a visually interesting dimension to your yard landscape, in particular when surrounded by cinder blocks.
Refresh the front yard with some unexpected solutions
Just because you don’t see corrugated steel or old cooper in people’s front yards doesn’t makes those inapplicable in your own yard.
Why not making it more futuristic with wood scraps, or recycled cooper fences? This will neither be difficult nor expensive.
Ending thoughts
Image source: Sweaney Custom Homes, Inc.
At the end of the day, designing a front yard will depend absolutely on your personality, wishes, and ideas.
What this article intends to show you is that landscaping doesn’t take that much time and effort, and will benefit way more from your creativity than it would from the services of a gardening company that simply replicates the same ideas.
The front yard is probably the best place to personalize with style and functionality, where you can apply all colors, textures, and materials that you couldn’t place anywhere inside.
Plus, maintaining a beautiful lawn is a healthy and enjoyable habit for the entire family, in particular ones that will add cute reading swings, BBQ appliances, or a playground for the children.