12 Front Yard Landscaping Ideas

Adding flower beds and foundation plantings to your front yard may be your first thought. It’s a traditional way to landscape your front yard and a great place to start, adding beauty and attracting birds, butterflies and more to your yard.

Make sure planting beds work with your home layout. Smaller homes look best with compact beds. Long, flowing beds of low-growing plants accent a single-story ranch-style home perfectly, while a two-story house offers options for taller plants and more formality.

While you can adapt a bed to your own personal style, an easy-to-remember general rule is to place taller plants in the back of the bed and lower-growing plants toward the front. Dress up your bed and protect your plants with a well-maintained layer of mulch that accents the bed or blends in with a more natural landscape. As an alternative to mulch, plant a low-maintenance ground cover such as mondo grass, sweet woodruff, ivy or low-growing variety of sedum.

A formal front yard needs a geometric layout and symmetrical plantings. Limit plant choices to a small number of varieties. White-blooming flowers are good choices, and you can add one or two other colors, but a limited palette works best. Well-trimmed hedges give the right look, and if you have the space, topiaries work well in in a formal front yard, as long as they’re scaled to fit the house.

Make use of right angles, whether you’re laying out a flower bed or creating a path. Plan on using brick and square or rectangular pavers for patios and walkways. Concrete planters work well in a formal landscape, as do fences and walls. if you want to add a seating area, consider wrought-iron outdoor furniture or pieces with a similar look.

A modern front yard, much like a formal landscape, needs clean lines and right angles. And, as with a formal design, symmetrical plantings are key. Avoid spreading, creeping and sprawling plant types. Focus on neat, low-growing plants and maintain regular spacing when you plant. A minimal number and variety of plants and colors work best in a modern design. 

Instead of using wood chips or bark, accent your plants with materials such as gravel or other types of landscaping rock. Concrete pavers work well for patios and walkways in modern front yard landscaping designs.

A cottage garden is on the other end of the spectrum from a formal or modern front yard design. A mix of flowers, shrubs, colors, textures and fragrances typically characterize this front yard design. While cottage gardens don’t require the formal layout and careful organization of some landscape designs, there are some things you need to plan for. A sunny landscape is a must, and since you’ll usually want to group your plants close together for maximum impact, you need high-quality soil with plenty of organic material.

Despite a more natural look, you can expect to do a good deal of maintenance (dividing, deadheading, pruning, etc.) to keep your front yard looking beautiful. Start small and expand over time as you get the feel for the casual design and the effort involved.

Local species of plants and flowers are ideal for cottage gardens, as are trellises and vining plants. A picket fence can support these plants and add a bit of structure and containment to your front yard garden design. Also consider gently curving walkways of gravel or stepping stones to complement the look.

Creative use of container plants is a simple way to design a front landscape, letting you add bursts of color and texture wherever you like without overpowering your yard or committing you to spending your weekends doing yard work. Planting a container garden is a great choices for rental properties, adding beauty without making permanent changes.

Containers make it easy to grow and replant many types of plants and flowers and a container garden is easy to expand or change seasonally. In addition to planters designed for flowers, you can find large containers suitable for small varieties of trees or even topiaries that add a touch of formality. Easily group plantings of different sizes and colors around your landscape to create any type of display that suits your tastes. Use planters with similar styles for a more designed look or mix different types for casual appeal.

Hardscaping makes use of non-organic elements to create a front yard design and has the obvious benefit of being low maintenance. There are a variety of hardscaping options and you can incorporate as many or as few elements as you like. Building a paver walkway or pea gravel patio can create an interesting contrast to a sprawling cottage garden. Edging stones add an architectural element to a flowing flower bed and stone mulch or river rock can add a modern touch to your yard.

On a larger scale you can design a paver patio, build a raised planting bed or create a rock garden. Driveway pavers can create a more natural look than concrete or asphalt, and a stone fountain or bench adds a nice finishing touch to many landscape designs. And of course, you can combine hardscaping with plants and flowers to create the perfect balance of living and non-living elements.

Even if your front yard is small, it can still be the envy of the neighborhood. There are a lot of creative ways to make the most of the space you have. Plant around a mailbox or along walkways and fences. Make good use of ground cover plantings. The versatility and variety of container plants make them a good choice. You can scale a container garden to any space.

Even if you have no yard at all, window boxes, planters on your steps and hanging planters on your porch make your home more welcoming and boost curb appeal without requiring an actual landscape. Hardscaping is another great small yard design option as well, letting you pack a lot of visual impact into limited space.

Front yards with a significant slope create a design challenge, but terracing the landscape can give multiple levels of landscaping opportunities. A terraced design lets you beautify a slope and allows easy care for your plants while making use of water runoff and helping prevent erosion. Concrete block retaining walls and walls made from landscape timbers or repurposed railroad ties let you create raised planting beds on multiple levels and you can plant any remaining slopes with low-maintenance ground cover such as low-growing juniper to add natural color and texture and to hold the soil in place.

Whether you live in an area with limited rainfall or simply want to use water wisely, a drought-tolerant front yard may be the answer. Container plants are again a good option. They require less water than planting beds and let you better control the supplemental water you use. Replacing areas of a lawn with hardscaping or a rock garden reduces your reliance on water, but plan your design to incorporate gravel and stone mulch that allows rainwater and runoff to drain into the soil.

You don’t have to eliminate landscape plantings entirely, however. Drought-tolerant plants (including succulents and cacti or ground cover such as sedum and thyme) give you variety in shapes, colors and textures but endure hot, dry conditions better than some plants. Remember that mulched areas help retain moisture for any plants. If you do want to include more water-dependent plants into your design, group them together so you can water them as efficiently as possible.

Several of the strategies above can help you create a front yard that looks great but doesn’t require a lot of care. Container plants don’t need the same level of effort as garden beds in terms of watering, feeding or weed control, and planters with clean, simple designs can add a modern touch. Gravel pathways with square stepping stones and sitting areas made with pea gravel and pavers require minimal upkeep but can be eye-catching features for your yard. Symmetrical layouts and straight lines can modernize this approach. 

As with drought-resistant landscapes, you don’t have to eliminate garden beds entirely. Planting low-maintenance plants like succulents and low-growing groundcover make beautifying your landscape simpler and maintaining a good layer of mulch makes any planting bed easier to manage. Mix and match these techniques to create the perfect look and the perfect balance of beauty and effort. To give your beds a modern design, choose plant varieties with symmetrical growing patterns and minimize the range of flower and foliage colors. 

Even if you aren’t looking for a modern front yard landscape, you can adapt these low-maintenance techniques for just about any style.

If your front yard is bordered by a fence (particularly a picket fence, chain link fence or metal fence), you’ve got a unique opportunity to landscape your space. Climbing roses or colorful, vining flowers can benefit from a fence and can in turn add texture and color. This type of landscaping can be particularly helpful if the appearance of the fence itself leaves something to be desired. Keep in mind however, these plants will make fence maintenance difficult are better suited for fencing materials such as metal and vinyl that don’t require a lot of upkeep.

As an alternative, consider creating flower beds a few feet inside the fence line to allow access to the fence and create more depth. Planting beds on the outside of a fence can simply create colorful contrast with the fence. For a touch of formality, grow a low hedge  along the bottom of the fence. Lay pea gravel along the fence line for a manicured design.

Ponds don’t have to be reserved for the backyard landscape. They can just as easily provide beauty in the front yard. With the addition of a fountain or waterfall you can also create a pleasant soundscape that helps mask other noises. Building a pond creates a unique focal point for a front yard. You can size one to fit just about any space and design it to work with any other landscape elements from flower beds to hardscaping.

This type of water feature attracts birds and pollinators to your landscape and you can plan a pond that will support fish for even more living beauty and visual interest. Plantings around the pond area will help keep debris out of the water and provide shelter for wildlife, while water plants provide a different look and support any aquatic live you want to add.

To create an amazing front yard, plan a design that combines different colors, textures, shapes and sizes. Planting beds with a variety of flowers, shrubs and trees can achieve this, but also consider elements like planters, mulch, a stepping stone walkway and even a small statue or fountain. However, don’t overdo your design. Select just a few varieties of plants and colors, and keep the elements balanced across the front of the house. Add landscape lighting to maintain curb appeal at night and consider rotating plants out seasonally for year-round appeal.

Use your house and landscape for design cues for your front yard. If your home design is formal or modern, work with a limited color range and incorporate right angles into your bed designs and walkways. For a home with a more relaxed design or an open landscape, you can create a more natural-looking design with a wider variety of plantings. If you have a small yard or want to minimize upkeep, focus on container plants to add color and texture. Look for ways to incorporate native plants into your design — they’ll typically be easier to maintain.

Start with foundation plantings and flower beds. Look for opportunities to add additional flower beds as well as trees and shrubs. Container plants can add color and texture to your porch, and if you have a fence, you can look for climbing and vining plants to add more variety to your design. If you don’t have a fence, you can make use of trellises or an arbor. However, keep in mind proportion and balance. Your landscape should complement your home, not overpower it. Consider maintenance as well. A landscape full of different plants can look nice but will require a good deal of upkeep.

Save money by planting seeds rather than seedlings. Get the most for your landscaping investment by using perennials, which can continue to beautify your yard season after season, rather than annuals, which you’ll need to replace each season. Another option is to look for fast-growing ground cover, like creeping phlox, sweet woodruff and creeping thyme, to quickly fill in bare areas. You can also consider native plants — those that have adapted to do well in your area. They typically require less water and can resist disease and pests better than non-native species, so you may spend less on upkeep.