How to Build a Well Designed Front Yard Landscape

You've seen them before -- the well designed front yard landscapes that really stand out. They don't look like just a place with some plants, they really catch the eye and look great. There are lots of gardens out there, but most are not particularly eye-catching. There really are techniques that will help to build a well designed front yard landscape.

Instructions

1. 

   Plan out your garden ahead of time on paper. The well designed front yard landscape doesn't happen by accident.

2. 

   Choose plants that grow well in your climate, soil and the exposure of your garden. Struggling plants don't look beautiful. Healthy, happy ones do.

3. Use basic principles of design like placing larger plants to the back and smaller ones to the front. Then break a few rules. Good design and creativity means to follow most of the rules, but play with them, too, and break one or two once and a while to create interest and tension to your front yard landscape design.

4. Plant your garden as if all the plants were adult size. You can fill in extra space with annual flowers. By leaving sufficient room for young plants to grow and reach maturity you will have healthy plants that fit nicely together for years. Looking pretty at the time of installation only to grow into a disaster later is not the way to build a well designed front yard landscape.

5. 

   Factor in different blooming times. If you group plants by flowering periods you can create colorful shifting focal points and you will always have at least part of the garden looking exciting at different times all year round.

6. Limit your color palette. Use families of color: pastels, single color gardens, warm colors (reds, oranges and yellows) or cools (blues, purples, pinks). Too many colors will fight against each other and ruin the impact of using color altogether.

7. Use perennials and annuals purposefully. Perennials will come back year after year and will be the backbone of your garden. Annuals can boost color, fill in blank holes and splash excitement in special areas.

8. 

   Using some of these landscape design steps, you can build a well designed garden in your front yard that will stay looking great over a long period of time.

Resources

• Landscape design and gardening information