Design Challenged - Help with front bed rehab
Hey guys, looking for some ideas to spruce up the bed in front of my house. This project is a piggyback off of another bigger project where we are turning the side of our house from a massive mulch bed to sod. I want to take this opportunity to update the front bed as well. We have not done much to it since moving in a few years back. I am considering removing almost everything (transplanting what I can) since I am not a huge fan of having large shrubs blocking windows and porch. As the title implies, I am good at executing a plan but horrible at designing one. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Current Situation
Work to be done on side (Please excuse my awful photoshop job)
Comments (25)
PROSabrina Alfin Interiors
last monthThere's nothing inherently wrong with your current beds. Put some edging around the perimeter of the bed, then fill in the blank spots with colorful flowering shrubs or annuals. I agree the taller shrugs should be move from below the windows.
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Design help needed for really huge driveway bed & front yard
Comments (42)Karin, it's interesting and enlightening to read what others think of our house and landscape, even if we may not agree or take up some suggestions. We live in an area where we don't have a large number of options for landscape/garden design, unfortunately! So no worries about me being offended by criticism/suggestions, etc. We appreciate the help and we will work to think about each decision in terms of its purpose. We originally had purposes in mind for each bed in our backyard, though it may not look like it now - with the exception of the hydrangeas along the back fence. They were originally planted behind our garage (where the pool equipment enclosure is now). When we put in the pool, we moved them to the side bed (which didn't exist before the pool) along the fence, but the neighbor's black walnut tree hampered their growth. So rather than throw them away, we made a new bed along the back, sort of a temporary spot until we figure out what to do with the rest of the beds. I won't bore you or anyone else by enumerating the purposes of the other beds in the back, but just want to add that we also did have more visual interest and contrast in flower, foliage, and form - but many of those plants didn't survive. We've been in a sort of holding pattern back there for a couple years - and I'm looking forward to improving that landscape. But back to the front yard/landscape. One of our goals for changes remains to revise the long bed along the drive for the dual purposes of easier maintenance and including more variety in its plants to provide more interest in months other than July. Another goal is to revise the small bed near the side steps to make it better looking (instead of a hodgepodge of plants, as it is now) and as a memorial garden for our daughter, with beautiful plantings. We also still want to improve the visual impact/visibility of the front door. To me, that is a separate goal from emphasizing the front entrance, if by entrance one means the wide front steps (which aren't truly the entrance to the house, but visually they do give that impression). We understand the goals of Laag's ideas about beds in front of the steps and a wide path from the driveway to the steps/porch. But in terms of practicality, we don't want people to stop midway up our driveway and walk up the path, because then they block the entire driveway. Also, the steps are covered with snow for the entire winter (it's too expensive to pay to have them cleared each time it snows), and a walkway would also be covered in snow, so the practical function of a walkway beginning partway up the driveway wouldn't apply during those months. I've been bothered for a while by the sense of imbalance between the long driveway bed and the expanse of grass on the other side of the drive, so another purpose of making changes is to see if we can balance that. Laag's suggestion about a grassed area in the long bed was so helpful - I just don't know whether that is enough to achieve balance, or if we will need a bed under the birches. A new purpose resulted from a number of comments here, and that is to soften the impact of the veranda wall. I think we are just so used to how our house looks that we don't see it for how it really appears. You all have opened our eyes to this issue! I haven't been in the back yards of the houses above us (in the back) to see what they can see of our back yard. It "feels" private in our back yard most of the time, probably due to the fence, but I still don't do any skinny-dipping. ;-) The front feels very public to me (it's a busy street and in the spring/summer/fall, a very busy golf course), with the exception of the veranda. On the rare occasions when we are seated there (it's usually too hot/buggy/raining/cold), we have at least the illusion of privacy behind that fortress wall - though with close neighbors, we have to watch how loudly we talk. My sister mused aloud a few years ago about the idea of putting a hedge across the front of the yard (on the lawn on the house side of the sidewalk, if you're facing away from the house) to screen the street and provide more of a sense of privacy. A neighbor a couple of houses down has a partial bridal wreath hedge in the yard and she was noting that at the time. I'll update as we get further along in this process; meanwhile, if anyone has more comments/suggestions, we're very happy to have them....See MoreDesign Challenge: Tiny Bed
Comments (2)Does the area get full sun? How about a mix of echinacea and coreopsis? Seems like it would fit in well....See MoreHelp with front bed design!
Comments (6)Thanks so much for the suggestions so far! There is nothing but a street (and beyond that a parking lot) to the east of us to block sun in the morning, so it gets sun from daybreak until about noon in the summer. Later in the afternoon, the last 12" or so by the sidewalk get another couple of hours of sun (in the original post, you can see that small strip of sunlight). We get surprisingly little snow. I think I only had to shovel 2 or 3 times this past winter. Light salting usually works just fine. When I do shovel, it goes on the "hellstrip" between the sidewalk and street, not by the house. Some places in our yard do have that awful, hard clay, along with sizable chunks of coal! Fortunately, though, a previous owner was a gardener and amended the soil where she had plants. I don't know the acidity/alkalinity, but it seems to be good, rich dirt. Right now there is pachysandra (at least, that's the best ID I've been able to give it) in front of the porch wall that I just mow over. It keeps coming back, so I guess it doesn't mind too much! At the outside porch corner there is also a small patch of plants about 18" high. They haven't bloomed so I don't know for sure, but the leaves look like iris to me. I'm honestly scared of putting vines on the house. There was (we think) Virginia creeper in several spots when we bought the house. It was tedious getting it off the brick without causing damage. Here it is the day we closed: href> The creeper doesn't look too bad there, but it was all over the back of the house, too. Even after we pulled it off and uprooted what we could, it still kept coming back. I think it's pretty well under control now, but it's not an experience I want to repeat! We keep the giant bush cut down as short as we can. It's so close to the house we're afraid of digging it up. We're pretty sure it's an overgrown weed, so we're ruthless in cutting it back. I guess I hadn't thought about taller evergreens at the columns, but that might be something to consider! I wouldn't want to crowd the steps, but they need to be replaced. I don't think I'll be able to find 9' slabs of limestone in my budget, so they could easily be shortened to accommodate that planting. Aren't most bulbs full sun? I might be able to get away with some in that small area that gets sun again in the evening. I wouldn't mind reds and oranges if they were against the white of an Annabelle - I just didn't want it directly against the wall!...See MoreHelp with Front Yard Bed Design
Comments (8)By the way, it was immensely helpful for you to post the plan of your yard. Just because people commonly do something a certain way for eons does not mean it is the right or best way to do it. Builders have been installing chronically undersized front walks to homes since ever ... better sized for RVs in campgrounds! And everyone is completely used to it. :-( For the most part, the trend of encapsulating the front walk with landscape beds got cranking in the 1960's and 70's on account of a resurgent interest in gardening & landscaping. It provides more places for plants. But it also shrinks the view and approach to the entrance. Go into any 15 year old subdivision with this scheme and see how enlarged plants can utterly destroy the entrance to a home. Is it always the case? No. But it is more often than not. Beyond that, most people who are landscaping are copying, not thinking. This includes professional landscapers. (Sorry guys.) Another factor that lurks in the background is that landscapers like to sell more plants rather than fewer. The red areas in my sketch are either annuals, or perennials or something showy, attempting to bring cheer and attention to the entrance area....See More
Lyn Nielson
last month
Paul_DE-7a
last monthThanks Lyn, I am slowly reducing/shrinking the mulch beds so that I don't have to continuously apply 25 yards of mulch every other year. I am definitely interested in shrinking this bed a bit. I also don't want it to look too unbalanced with the other side of the porch. See pic below. I was thinking of a few evergreens close to house (maybe boxwoods) and then a couple pops of color in front via flowering perrenials maybe?
Front Flower BEd PRoject · More Infojck910
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PROYvonne Martin
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RedRyder
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PROPaul_DE-7a
last month- PRO
Dig Doug's Designs
last month ptreckel
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cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
last month
Barbara Almandarz
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Rachel Lee
last monthPaul_DE-7a
last monthlast modified: last monthI agree. I am considering starting from scratch on the entire front. I have room in the backyard to transplant many of these shrubs. I don't really like the heavenly bamboo so those three I will likely get rid of. Would like a more cohesive design across the whole front of the house using smaller shrubs. Here is a picture of the whole front. I'll likely need to hit a site like upwork for design help. I have tried local landscapers but most do not want to offer design services alone.
cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
last monthlast modified: last monthPaul_DE-7a
8 days agoUPDATE - the work on the side is finished so I have a better idea what I am working with now. Im gonna do the beds this weekend so want to create a plan before heading to nursery. Want to put some smaller shrubs on side of the house and maybe a taller narrow one in corner by the AC unit. Then need some low plants to go around the dogwood. Any plant suggestions for these spots? After this is done I will pull the nandina in front of windows and revamp that whole bed as well.
ptreckel
8 days agoPaul_DE-7a
7 days agoSo I am trying to incorporate the ideas I have gotten from this thread but struggling to finalize a plan I can execute this weekend. I used photoshop to the best of my ability to remove everything from the front bed to perhaps solicit some mock ups from all of you that are soooo much more creative than me. Since it is the front, I really want to use mostly evergreens so it isn't bare in the winter. I definitely want to use some smaller hydrangeas to add color. The wife dislikes hostas and grasses so I will exclude those. I think the issue we have is that we are trying to find a happy medium between an overcrowded/wild look and a super formal design where everything is pruned and in rows. Everything I come up with looks too "planned", if that makes sense.
- PRO
Dig Doug's Designs
6 days agoThis idea uses Soft Touch Holly, Hosta, Dwarf Cryptomeria & Chamaecyparis:
Paul_DE-7a
6 days agofloral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
6 days agoPaul_DE-7a
6 days ago
BeverlyFLADeziner