New little house--how should I landscape front yard?
I recently purchased this little semi-detached brick house in suburban Baltimore, zone 7a. It has a basement window behind the stone planter that I don't want to block with large bushes. I don't want to block the right hand basement window with bushes either. The stone planter has about 12" of interior width, which I intend to plant with geraniums, portulaca, and petunias come spring. The front has a southern exposure. I have a dwarf crape myrtle which I think would look nice near the juncture of the city sidewalk and my sidewalk to the porch, framed by a couple of small landscape rocks, maybe kept company with some small colorful perennials. I might make a narrow flagstone path from the driveway to the porch, so I can easily walk to the porch from my car without trampling grass. What else could I do to beautify this small front yard? Thanks!
Comments (7)
cecily 7A
2 years agoRelated Discussions
HELP - I need ideas for landscaping front yard
Comments (14)KY2011, a plan will not be useful to you in creating a landscape design unless it is accurately drawn--with the distances being measured--and your's is not. One 16' distance is shown at more than 3 times the length of an 8' distance and many other measurements are obviously not proportionately correct. You'll can print out a scale that will allow you to measure the distances. (Link below. Use the inch-decimal--sixth one down--to create a plan that is 1" = 10". That will probably work the best. Be sure to disable "shrink to fit" when you print.) The measured plan allows one to fit in objects that are also measured ... to make sure that there is room for everything and that one has placed enough objects (plants) in the plan. It allows one to see that the distances between objects are properly proportioned, for best use of the space being created. This brings up another point that plants shown in your plan are not well or realistically arranged. Some are too close to the house, but too far from one another in the rows. The "bump-out" portion of the building is not shown, so plants march across the front of the house as if it weren't there. This will not work in real life. The Japanese maple could not be placed as you have it. That's a space sized for a Hosta. (The 6' - 8' ht. you've marked is at one stage of its life, but is not its end height.) A nice landscape uses plants to solve problems and create a positive image. It's not just placing one's favorite decorations (plants) wherever they can be squeezed in around the yard. There's no reason a homeowner can't do their own landscape design, if they're willing to use the methods professionals use and also learn a lot about plants. I suggest that you draw an accurate plan and re-post (without plants shown.) Then you could probably get suggestions for better plant placement. You should also be thinking about what architectural shortcomings need enhancing by plants. The size of the house has been mentioned. You've also mentioned the "concrete at the porch," but it's far enough away that it doesn't look any different than the siding, and and I don't get the impression you're anxious to hide that. While its finish at close range might not be the greatest, couldn't some paint take care of it?. Why not start with that and see if you detest it as much? One person mentioned hiding the bottom of the stone facade. (A vine on a custom trellis or a clipped hedge could take care of it with the least bulk.) What about hiding the bottom of the "bump-out." With no architectural devices appearing to support it (same as stone facade) it looks like it defies the laws of nature and so would be better hidden. Street trees help frame the house (as well as provide a protective ceiling at the street) so why not pick ones that can be more readily limbed up in order to create the view below? If you don't do the things that need be done, you'll end up with the typical "builder's landscape" ... something to rip out just as soon as, or shortly after it becomes grown. Here is a link that might be useful: Decimal inch ruler...See MoreFront yard landscape done --- but new weeds!!!
Comments (5)Weeds do come in with newly landscaped plants, and instead of complaining about it, more sensible to just keep on top of pulling them. It is difficult to mulch so completely that weeds don't have a chance, especially when you have areas of ground cover between pavers. I think it is very unrealistic to think that a new garden should be weed free, and this part of the gardening is now on you, unless you contracted to have the installer maintain the new garden. If you knew you previously had the yellow flowering Oxalis pes-capre in the old garden, you should only have expected it to remain. If it was introduced within the root balls of the new plantings, it is probably easiest to contain this infestation if you dig the plants back up and carefully comb through the roots to remove any trace of the tubers/roots. This Oxalis only gets worse over time if not watched. The fact that it is coming up both in bare spots free of plants and within new plants makes it more likely that you already had it, or it was brought in as infested top soil/mulch, if you never had it previously. The other purplish foliaged Oxalis with the much smaller yellow flowers is a common weed in gardens and nursery pots, but is much easier to control just by keeping on top of it, and not leaving any bare earth showing....See MoreSmall Front Yard - Should I Rip Up the Grass?
Comments (10)One thing to grass strip does is provide a (mostly psychological) barrier between 'public' and 'private' space. I think you'd miss that if it was gone. Mind you, a low picket - or ornamental iron (whatever is vernacular to your area) - fence would provide a physical barrier while leaving the garden visible. We have a deeper front yard than yours but have a large garden open to the street there. There is also a ditch between the road and the house which, of course, acts as both a physical and psychological barrier. We add to that with 'the moat bed', a narrow bed at the top of the ditch. So, from the road to the house, there is grassy ditch, narrow 'moat-garden bed', grass path, large planting bed, grass path (mostly invisible from the road), narrow foundation bed, garage wall. From the street the garden appears open and welcoming, but there are clear lines denoting the public/private boundary. Friends and neighbours will step across to speak with us if we're out in the garden, but strangers stay on the street if they stop to speak to us if they're passing by when we are working in the garden. So think about that issue of a public/private line of separation before you remove the grass. I suspect you'll want something there and, if not grass, what?...See MoreNew Home - Blank Canvas - Help Me Landscape My Front Yard PLEASE!
Comments (10)I'll try to play catch up. (Have been travelling for a little more than a month in the past 40 days. Much of that was without Internet so more absent than I thought might happen.) The drawing is pretty basic but hopefully it will convey some ideas. First, I would get rid of the odd angles on the beds. They would look much better to tie in to walks at 90* angles instead of weird wedge shapes. In the lower, right corner I'm illustrating two ways you could make a circular bed around the lamp post. (The lamp post is a primary purpose of the bed so the bed ought to use the post, at least roughly, as the radius point. And a generally circular shape would make more sense than a sprawling asymmetrical wedge shape.) Also, I would re-shape the large front bed. It should swell out to accommodate the tree you intend to plant but does not need to extend outward, around the walk in a grabbing fashion. To explain the planting in the illustration, it is a shrub below each window of the garage, and a small hedge below the pair of windows (right half). None of those should get taller than bottom of the window. There is seasonal color flanking the entrance to the porch and at the left of the porch. A perennial mass wraps the garage corners and right house corner. A low groundcover, solid, links the other plantings together. Can't tell how your existing tree would possibly conflict with the proposed tree. (The third picture you posted was taken from a different position so the existing tree location shown could be seriously misleading.) You might want to consider moving the proposed tree farther back in the scene rather than placing it at a pure diagonal to the house corner. (I wouldn't know because we don't have the information.) A large shade tree is probably not in order. A flowering tree (such as redbud) might be a better size to use so close to the house. As far as what plants to use, gauge the heights and research what plants grow locally that could perform well....See MoreEsther-B, Zone 7a
2 years agoCecily: On my street, the entire street is made up of identical semi-detached homes, each unit separated by about an 8' strip of grass and a driveway. There are numerous little kids. I don't want to fence in the front yard, only the back yard, and that's for deer, bunnies, and people who like to cut through my backyard from the street behind to my street.
Anna: here is my snazzy new address sign, with a solar powered light on a stake stuck into the planter soil to illuminate. It is a 14" square laser-cut black metal sign, which I mounted on a piece of white plexiglass for maximum visibility. Already got compliments on it from neighbors.
And the white trim is the vinyl trim on the windows and the white flashing on the roof. Door is going to be changed to a fiberglass door the color and texture of light oak, with a fan-shaped light, like this. I think I'll try to keep the white aluminum storm door, as it's a very good one.
Dig Doug: That is a beautiful design! My crape myrtle is Berry Dazzle, which gets about 3-4' tall and wide. I sort of imagined it with about 3 basketball-sized rocks around it, with smaller perennials or annuals tucked in and around the rocks for color and harmony with the crape myrtle. I actually have an empty green ceramic pot closely resembling the one you put next to the window, and I love that idea. Now, what to put into it? A rosebush? A dwarf spirea like "Neon Flash"? A thrill-fill-spill combination? My contractor is going to build me a little flagstone path from the driveway to the porch so I won't have to traipse across wet grass, mud, or snow. I was thinking perhaps a border of bulb flowers along the backside of that path might be nice. I should mention that I have many small to medium hostas, several beautiful smaller heucheras, and a painted fern to work with.
Esther-B, Zone 7a
2 years ago
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