How to Landscape a Front Yard and Entrance

Your front yard is the first thing people see when they come to your house. You should take extra care to make your front yard landscape and entrance as inviting as possible.

Instructions

1. Choose plants that match the shape, style and size of your home. If you have a one story ranch, towering oak trees would dwarf your house. If your house has a stately, columned entrance, a cottage style garden would look out of place. Look at the architecture of your home and design your front yard landscape to compliment it.

2. Choose plants for your front yard landscape that fit your lifestyle. You may like the look of formal flower gardens and shaped hedges, but if you would rather not spend every weekend with the clippers, choose plants that grow naturally in the shape you prefer. You can still get a formal look with plants that maintain a compact and symmetrical growth habit without much pruning. Also, don't grow plants that drop leaves, sticks, fruit or flower petals if you don't want to pick them up.

3. Make sure the plants in your landscape are suited for the environment. Choose plants that are drought tolerant and grow well in your planting zone. Make sure the plants you grow can handle the amount of sun or shade your front yard gets.

4. Measure your front yard and keep these measurements in mind as you shop for plants. Look at the labels and note the mature size of the plants. The plants you see at the store are much smaller than their mature size. You don't want to put a plant in that you have to remove later because it has overgrown its space.

5. Use trees in your front yard landscape to frame the house. Place trees off to the side so that they don't block the view of your front door. You can create an irregular shaped planting bed around the trees for smaller shrubs and flowers.

6. Use shrubs around your foundation to soften the hard edges. You can plant tall shrubs or small trees at the outer corners to frame the house. Include some specimen plants to keep the landscape interesting, but only use a few. Too many specimen plants lessen the effect and just make the landscape look busy. Plant smaller shrubs or flowers in front of the main foundation plants. This is a good place to add a splash of color.

7. Use planters to decorate your porch. Plant flowers or a shaped tree by your front door to draw the eye.

8. Don't fill every single space with plants. Let your plants have some room to reach their natural form so that they don't look crowded. If your plants are still young, you can fill in large gaps with mulch or annual flowers.