A thought... instead of having a concrete walk way, what about a flagstone landing from the front door with a short curved path that would fade into the grass. I love your porch, I can see grasses blowing in the wind some knockout roses daylily's, blackeyed susans, echinacia (some of the newer varieties) Have fun!

Our situation is very similar to yours, only access to our home is down a very long driveway as we live on a 3 acre wooded property. We have a side entrance to the house as well, and most everyone uses that door when they come to our home as it is the closest to the parking, but wanted to do something to emphasize the front entrance of the house.

We designed and installed beautiful hardscaping that compliments the stone on on our home, and created interesting beds on either side of the front steps. The hardscaping wraps around to the side entrance to tie it all together. It is tough to figure out how to create "curb appeal" when your house sits far back from the street. It was absolutely worth the $$ spent. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Best of luck to you, I know you'll get great ideas from the posters to Home Decorating.

If you added landscaping some distance in front of your house on either side of a grass "walkway" I think you could get the same effect as a path. At least in the picture you present, the yard looks flat. I would put a tree like a Redbud or Japanese Maple just to one side of the house, but again way in front of the house, not close up like your existing flower bed. And then around the tree put in a curved bed of low shrubs and flowers that outlines a path of sorts. Opposite of this curved bed, on the other side of the grass pathway, put another curved bed of similar plants, but no tree. I don't know if you can picture what I am saying. Maybe a photoshopper could help here.

You need some height in the landscape and a variety of plants and shrubs to give some interest to the front of the house without blocking it.
Diane

Work_in_progress, we have the same situation. Do you by chance have any photos that you could share? I'd love to see your solution!

lyfia, your house is so pretty! I love your big porch and all the space. We have somewhat the same thing, except our house is closer to the street. I looked for my inspiration pic but couldn't find it, so will show you my front in progress. I have changed it a bit since this pic and the plan is to pour concrete where the pavers are so the sidewalk flares out to the yard, and with flower beds on each side curving to the street. I also took the porch rails down and have yet to replace them.

Before:

After:

you could put down flagstone, and let the grass grow in between the flagstone.

Even a mulched path bordered by something that grows well in your area (liriope?) would work.

Thanks everybody for the ideas!! The pic really helps. Maybe I can just do a landing in front and let it just be grass with landscaping and trees we're planning all over the front.

I know I want easy maintenance and don't want to pay a bunch to do it as we can use the money elsewhere.

BTW would a island bed that is in front of the door, but about half-way between street and house take the focus off it not having a path to the front door.

This is a common set-up with houses. I would just enhance the walk-way with some shrubs or flowers.
{{!gwi}}

jane_ny, what if I don't want to spend the money to create a walkway to the front door that will never be used. At least not right now as we have plenty of other areas to use the money for. What can I do in the mean time. Just leave it as a grass path?

I have a similar situation as we are a very long way back from the road. We do have a sidewalk that leads to the front door but we use it a lot.

I would like to suggest that you extend your existing bed so that it takes up all the space between your house and sidewalk. Then you could do a bed along the front of the house that curves out along the corners of the porch. You could do low plantings in front of the house with some height added at the ends of the porch. You could leave a grassy path with perhaps a few pavers in front of the front door, or just extend the bed all the way across.

I'm not sure I'm describing this too well. I wish I could photoshop! I'll enclose a few pics of my front landscaping that might give you more of an idea of what I'm talking about. I've used taller plants since I have a higher foundation. They grew really quickly so some of them already need a trim:

1st year planted (a bit dark--click to see larger pic):
{{!gwi}}

after 2 years:

What curb appeal??
{{!gwi}}

Thanks fussy_chicken and for sharing your pics. You're way further off the road than we are. I deliberately didn't do the full area a bed as I don't have time to maintain it and even with landscape fabric and mulch it will be a lot once I extend it around the porch and with a little one on the way I will have even less time.

I had planned on continue curving the bed so it extends out around the corners, but wasnt' sure what to do by the front door. I drew a shape that looked really good with a large curve on either side framing the front door as well as well as the corners, but not sure what to do by the front door. If adding a few pavers or stones just right there would work I think that is what I'll do. Sounds like it would as several have suggested that.

Does the curve have to end where the posts framing the doors are or can I make the bed narrower?

Out front of the house -- I would plan out a a very large square garden with pea-gravel walkways forming the edges and acting as a cross through the middle.

Think of a "patchwork quilt" effect .....((or for a different look -- think of a huge wagon-wheel))

IN the very middle of the large garden you could add a large pond or even a gazebo (on a bed of paver/patio stones) that would act as a focal point for the whole front yard.

Then I'd add herbs to the gardens -- and perhaps vegetables ......

Can you tell that I've always wanted a medieval herb (or kitchen) garden???? LOL!

Jan

If curb appeal is truly your goal, you are eventually going to have to spend money on a walk way or nice path. Your argument that you don't want to spend money on a walkway to a door that is never going to be used doesn't quite make sense. If you aren't going to use the front door, why did did you purchase a nice one and paint it an attractive color? Because it makes the whole house look better. The same argument holds true for an attractive path to the door.

deee - the walk would never be used. The door is used all the time. Just that there is a quicker easier way to get there by our normal walkway that provides a straighter path and allows easy wheelchair/walker access. I guess my original mention of that wasn't clear enough.

I don't feel that the $1K+ that a concrete walk or flagstone path (even more expensive) or pavers (super expensive) would cost is money well spent for US at this time. For that curb appeal I can live without, but I still want it to look nice, but absolutely need easy maintenance. We don't have time to maintain gravel, mulch, or compacted granite paths as they all will have weeds within a week where we are at, so I guess I'm looking at options on what to do without to still have it look nice.

I got some great ideas here. Just put a landing there with flag stones and let grass grow in between or fill the space in with plants seems to be some common ones and very workable as well.

Jan - sure sounds lovely and I wish we had the time to maintain something like it as I would love that too. We will eventually have a gazebo style on the stock pond that is going to be on the side of the house. We just need our little one to be born and grow much older before we dare having the pond that close to the house. There is one the next lot over that has me worried enough.

I'm considering checking with the next builder that will be starting a new house in the neighborhood to see if they could get us a concrete walkway for less while doing another house foundation or driveway, but I can't see spending the money unless it is much lower. Wish we had unlimited funds .....

I would spend the money on getting some really pretty green grass growing. I would plant some really nice flowering trees out front. I agree with you about not spending money on something that will never be used just so it everyone else thinks it looks good from the road. If it were me, I would make it look good from the porch.

I think you need some flowering trees, like dogwoods or cherry trees, plums or redbuds. JMO.

I'd start by using some dwarf shrubs, flowers, and lighting (solar is easiest, you just stick 'em in the ground) to delineate where the walking path actually IS, then getting a nice dense lawn or groundcover going. Post lights where the end of the walkway meets the driveway are another way to say "here's where you come into the house". I agree that trees should be a priority, and this is actually a great time to buy and plant trees because they're deeply discounted in most areas and you can plant most trees right up until you're getting consistent hard frosts. Not just flowering ones, but ones that look nice in the winter too, and at least one shade tree - if that is what your house looks like in winter you gotta be down South somewhere :-) where you need that shade. If you use the same plantings along the perimeter of that front porch/patio, it would provide both continuity with the pathway and a division between the ground and the house since it doesn't look like you're going to have any kind of a railing on the porch/patio?

Think "house set in a nice meadow" rather than "yet another suburban street".

Thank you everybody for the suggestions including the landscaping parts although I have that already mostly covered. Still unsure about what to do in front of the door, but with some of the ideas here I think we can do something that won't cost so much.

We do have some large trees in the plans (Monterey Oaks) as well as flowering ones as in Crepe Myrtles (some varieties are the size of trees) as they keep on flowering all summer long and also look cool in the winter. Along with a few other varieties of trees. I'm still trying to talk DH into some fruit trees to put in the back even if we don't get much of the fruit and the birds get more of it.

As for grass we are leaving that decision until the spring. The way things looked for this year we decided we didn't want to fight what looked to be a potential drought which turned out to be one (only had about 3" of rain since May here), so stopped all landscaping for the year back in May. We like to conserve water and most of what we plant will be drought tolerant as it establishes along with deer resistant. We are also going for natives and a more natural landscape vs. the normal manicured you see. Although I gave in to DH on having non-buffalo grass. We are out in the country after all so can get away with it.

midwestmom - that is a good way to look at it and is how I planned the trees that we are going to plant. So we can also see them from inside.

lyfia, I think you've gotten good ideas. I really love your porch and know that you'll enjoy it. I have no design skills but have some fun landscaping software so I tried something with your pic.

I know this is not exactly what you have in mind but I tried to incorporate some of the ideas including the pavers in front of the door. I just used generic type trees and plants just to give an idea. So just for fun:

{{!gwi}}

I wouldn't put in a path since you have one already that leads to the porch. I guess I don't understand why you'd need another path since it seems the existing path from the driveway leads to the porch area. Why would anyone want to walk outside of the porch area to get to the front door?

Anyhoo...I'd take into account that you're not real interested in doing alot of maintenance and stick with shrubs and trees. I have alot of nice perennial flower beds around my house and they do look nice when they're weeded, mulched, deadheaded etc..which is at the beginning of the summer and tends to go downhill after that! :-)

I'd do a bed of some sort across the front of the house - some shrubs and grasses maybe? My neighbor did a nice bed around her house with large bolder rocks, evergreen shrubs, grasses and used rocks as the mulch. I didn't think I'd like it as I'm a traditional gardener, but it was really nice. It was easy to maintain and the rocks did a good job of retaining moisture during dry periods. Plus when they did water, the water was able to get to the plants vs. being repelled by rock hard mulch (my mid to late summer pet peeve!)

fuzzy_chicken - thank you so much for giving me a picture. I think yours show real well how I can just continue the flowerbeds and not have to have a walk in front of the door even though most expect it. Actually your shape isn't too far off what I have drawn on my plans. I just have more curves and a few more evergreen bushes. What program did you use?

caroleh - thanks for your input. Since I'm doing natives it basically translates into fairly easy care. I choose plants that keep blooming with very little maintainence or water. The only maintanance is weeding, which I've yet to find a way around. I've put down denser mulch, I have landscape fabric and they still show up. I'm hoping as plants fill in more that it will help controlling it. I'm also going to add a stone or paver border to help keep the grass from throwing in runners. Any other ideas?

I can see many people find rocks appealing, however I had that at a house about 10 years ago and in my climate those rocks bake if in the sun and if you have a lot of trees (which we plan on) it is a pain to get the leaves out of there. Looks great for the first few years and then the weeds take hold in between the rocks where you weren't successful getting leaves and other organic matter out. I guess if you don't mind spraying weed killers it isn't that big of a deal, but I like to avoid that when I can. I've not had the problem with mulch like you describe, but I also don't water much after plants establish.