Ideas for this area in my front yard vs just leaving it empty?
manish500
4 years ago
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manish500
4 years agoThat's so strange. I thought I did include pictures! We are in zone 7... DC area. I have attached the pictures (again).
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Ideas for front yard?
Comments (8)We were posting about the same time, Yardvaark. There's a natural gas line that's very close to the curb. An electric line runs next and then the cable vision line goes in between the pole and tree. There's also a water line that runs toward the house about where your ground cover ends. The water guy said it's 3 feet under and copper. He said just be mindful of the valve shut off which he circled for me. I can carefully hand dig in the area. I just don't want anything with roots to disturb the lines. Using ground cover as you guys are recommending sounds like the way to go. It will spread on it's own and I have enough space between wires that I could maneuver around. I must have google-searched a thousand photos to get some ideas. I think I'm more of a cottage-style gardener - less those little trolls and having to replant a boatload of annuals each year. I wish I could achieve that with shrubs somehow. I like all season color and variety but want to keep it a little more airy so I can rake. The really well-done professional styled gardens tend to lean on the foo-foo side with everything perfectly manicured. Beautiful but not really me. I've seen some photos where they were able to get a nice look mainly using shrubs but none seemed to fit into my yard. I think I'm going to inevitably end up having to do some trial and error. (I hate the thought of that in my front yard). I'm getting some good ideas here and help with lay-out ideas; I really appreciate the input!...See MoreBack and front yard design ideas needed
Comments (9)I am far from an expert in this area, but since I recently purchased a new home and I am still trying to sell my old home I might be able to add something. The best advice is probably to spend as little as you can on your landscape. Spending $200 to spruce up your yard might be worthwhile, but $1,000+ is a waste. Somebody will purchase your home because of its location, the number of bedrooms, the layout, the number of baths, the neighborhood, and similar features. They will not purchase your home for the landscape. So why spend any money on your landscape? The reason is that potential buyers want the impression that they are purchasing a house that has been loved and maintained. If they notice a dozen problems before they even get to the front door, then they will look for other problems. Another reason is the real estate buzz word "curb appeal". The front of your house will be the fist thing shoppers see when they drive by or search on the Internet. Looking at the pictures, I agree that you should make some improvements to your landscape (provided that the inside of the house is in good shape). I would likely not remove anything that was not dead or in real bad shape. Prune back the overgrown shrubs, get some grass in there, get rid of the weeds, spread some mulch and straighten up. Removing the lower limbs from the spruce would open up the front of your house. You are not going to be able to create a dream landscape on a tight budget in just a few weeks, so do not try. - Brent...See MoreFront yard, before, after and what next? Open for ideas!
Comments (51)No, I don't think you should remove the sidewalk either. You're on a budget. I'm suggesting removing the brick and replacing it with stone with something like blue star creeper planted between them. One, you don't know what's under the brick, so if you wanted to plant, you'd need to dig it out, amend, raise it up as much as 12". Two, if you replace the brick with shrubs, it can be a little colorless and need regular pruning to keep it neat. I don't like wild shrubs at an entryway. You do need shrubs under your window and could use something large to anchor the corner. Someone in your area might suggest some attractive, well-behaved shrubs--I like box honeysuckles for shade but IDK if they grow in your area. Three, annuals alone wouldn't work because you'll have bare soil October until June or July--annuals need heat to take off here, especially in the shade. So that's my thinking--a pretty stone mini patio with some greenery between the stones, with pots for color that can be seen from the road. Another thing you could do is just take out some of the bricks along the edges and corners, and maybe a few in between, and plant groundcovers in the holes. Then proceed with pots....See MoreNeed landscape ideas - what to do with my slopping front yard
Comments (18)I have to disagree with you, Emmarene, that the slope is too large for a single groundcover. A groundcover can be the LAWN where a mowed turf grass lawn is not possible. One must just pick the groundcover that works for such a size. Some "timid" groundcovers work best for tiny places. Some more aggressive groundcovers work well only when the area is large enough, considering that mainly, one is managing EDGES. An aggressive groundcover in a small area would be a constant battle, but in a large area it can be one's best friend ... making ground green when grass can't, or won't, do it. The place to begin is finding out what others in the surrounding area (town/county, etc.) are using to solve the exact problem in their yards. Then one knows it grows in the area and is probably well suited to the size & job. If one groundcover is used predominantly over all others, then it is the groundcover to use. This is not the place to "be different," trying to express one's individuality. This is especially true if there is groundcover in use in a neighbor's yard. It would be an impossible battle trying to keep two different groundcovers from mixing at a property line. If one type of groundcover flows from one yard to the other, then there is no edge to maintain at the property line, making one's list of chores less. As an example, while risking bringing the haters out of the woodwork on account of the mere mention of it, I'll say that if this property was in Atlanta, Ga., the clear cut choice of groundcover would be English ivy, as it is the one in predominant use there for hilly and shady large areas (and some surprisingly small ones, though that is not my taste.) While many froth at the mouth at its mention, it nevertheless proves to be successfully manageable by many. (For me personally when I lived there, I considered it easy to care for, a lifesaver ... more or less worthy of worship on a grand scale, as it was the most versatile, hardest working horse in the barn.) In the typical case, since it commonly flowed from neighbor to neighbor, there was not property line trimming of it. Where it met lawn, many people were happy just to let the lawnmower be the one and only edger. Where ivy grew into the lawn, the regular mowing kept it from being noticeable at any distance. That left the only edging to be done where the ivy met paving. There, it needed to be trimmed a couple times/month during the growing season. One trimming per year kept it from climbing trees if one so chose. At back alleys and buildings, its leading edge could be sprayed with herbicide (such as Round-Up) in order to keep its advance in check. Or it could be manually cut, if one preferred. (Another advantage of it is that it was extraordinarily cheap/free/easy to create massive quantities of it, if one learned some simple propagation techniques.) Insofar as dividing groundcover from lawn, one would mark out all space that is too shady for turf grass to grow, or too hilly for it to be mowed. And then apply some simple art to it in order to come up with a dividing line that looks pleasant. In this case I would leave an "L" shape of grass next to the street and the drive, where it is neither too shady or too sloped. A radius transition between the two legs of the "L" would work well around the tree. The tree would be in the groundcover section, a visually comfortable distance away from its edge. Speaking of the tree, it is well past time to remove the scruffy looking bottom limbs from its trunk. The "shade" should not be hanging down, obscuring any front portion of the house....See Moremanish500
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