Front Yard Landscaping Ideas
When people think of front yard landscaping, they think of large plants surrounded by sweeping expanses of gorgeous green grass. In reality, not everyone has a massive front yard to support large-scale landscaping. A low maintenance yard is something that many people can appreciate, but it doesn’t mean that you have to give up on the quality of your yard.
There are many yard designs that are easy to maintain whether you do them yourself or hire a professional landscaper to do them for you. While hiring a professional landscaper will certainly make everything even easier, there are many D.I.Y options that don’t take extreme amounts of effort. Keep in mind that if you do decide to hire a landscaper, you need to specify that you are looking for a front yard landscaping design that is easy to maintain year-round. For many people, especially in suburban areas, front yards are small, which can it difficult to come up with good landscaping ideas. Fortunately, there are several easy ways to beautifully landscape your small front yard!
Great Front Yard Landscaping Ideas
Who Needs Grass?
One way to cut down on maintenance time is by growing little to no grass. It’s easy to assume that a front yard, however big or small, should be grassy. However, small front yard landscapes can work well without any grass at all – and sometimes, they’re easier to maintain without it! Not having to mow your lawn cuts out a lot of maintenance.
Speak to a landscaper about some ideas to make your yard look good without having to necessarily have a lawn. Clover lawns save money as well as time because they require less mowing. Clover also does well in areas that often suffer from drought, so you won’t have to worry about brittle, yellow grass becoming an eyesore.
Another benefit f clover is that bugs don’t like it, so your picnics are less likely to be interrupted. Consider creating a courtyard. Use landscape mesh underneath patio stones to prevent weeds sprouting in the gaps, and fill in the spaces between stones with pea gravel or sand. You can build raised perennial beds along the edges of your courtyard, filling in any gaps with a couple of well-placed shrubs. Make sure your plantings stay mulched to keep weeds out, and you’ll have a weed-free, mowing-free new landscape!
Make Your Neighbor’s Yard Part of Your Landscape
While your neighbor won’t appreciate it if you start gardening in their yard, you can still use their yard to enhance the look of your own. If your neighbors aren’t particularly fond of gardening but keep well-maintained grass, take advantage of the view as you plan your own landscape features.
Keep your border plantings low, and avoid privacy fences or anything that will obstruct the view of your neighbor’s nice grass. You can even align annual and perennial beds so that they open up to your neighbor’s yard. Capitalizing on a nice view of your neighbor’s front yard will help make your own yard seem larger.
Using Color to Make Your Yard Seem Bigger
Whether you’re planting along the edges of a sidewalk, around the border of your yard, or around your house, try to use bright, bold colors at the front of your design. Reserve more greenery and muted flowers for the background. People will notice the bright colors first, while the rest of your design seems to recede off into the distance. This simple trick can help make your front yard seem much larger than it actually is. If you do decide to have a lawn or even just a bed of flowers in your yard, you can install irrigation.
This method of watering your plants is not only easier, but it saves time and money and is much better for your plants. Hire a professional to install a system for your yard landscaping design or you can get a kit and do it yourself. Doing it yourself can be a bit tricky if you do not have experience, though. These are only a few of the ideas you can try. Front yard landscaping – even for small front yards – is limitless. Use your imagination, and you can turn even the smallest yard into attractive scenery.
Need help with your front yard landscaping? The professional landscapers at Evergreen Landscaping are here for you. Contact us or call 805-773-5395
