28 Lush Landscaping Ideas for Your Front Yard

The front yard is your home's calling card. Make a huge street-side impression with the right plants, flowers and landscaping with these front yard landscape ideas.

May 28, 2020

By: Keri Sanders

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Fairy-Tale Effect

A whimsical design, a white picket fence and a sweet and well-manicured lawn design make this front yard seem straight out of a children's book. Pretty pinks and purples coordinate perfectly with the colorful home.

Woodsy Retreat

When working with a house as beautiful and detailed as the home shown here, the landscaping can be as simple or as ornate as you like. Evergreens are a good choice for year-round landscaping. Design by HGTV fan babycates

Country Cottage

An open gate invites you into this idyllic home. The winding stone pathway leads you through the front yard, allowing you to take in the lovely trees and grasses throughout.

Rocky Front

The theme of this stone and terra-cotta house is carried through to the landscaping with the huge boulders and natural foliage. The simple, earthy look is peaceful and low maintenance. Design by Lori Dennis

Traditional Charm

Simple yard decor, such as an antique iron gate and perfectly placed vegetation, gives this house a country estate quality. A circular driveway amidst the landscaping makes this classic home a great place for entertaining. Design by HGTV fan On_the_east_twin

Potted Up

Incorporate containers in your front yard landscape so you can easily change your plants as the seasons progress. Buy seasonal plants when the time comes and enjoy them without having to plant months in advance. Design by Virginia Rockwell

Floral Delight

The neutral color of this Spanish-style home makes a perfect backdrop to a yard full of colorful flowers. Bright colors pop in flower beds and window boxes against the home's facade.

Down on the Farm

There is nothing fussy about this front yard. A pop of pink surrounded by a bed of greenery gives a casual and pretty look with minimal upkeep. Design by Virginia Rockwell

Elevated Appeal

Cascading layers of bright flowers and deep-green shrubbery flow from the front porch of this quaint suburban home. As guests stroll up the stairs, each new level is as lush and inviting as the last. Design by HGTV fan On_the_east_twin

Whimsical Greenway

The path leading up to this home's covered entrance is lined with tall green grasses, ferns and bushes. The owners created a personal forest in the front yard filled with cohesive plants and just begging to be visited by a family of sweet bunnies. Design by Virginia Rockwell

Practical Plantings

The deer-resistant plants in this elaborate front yard garden are both attractive and practical, ensuring the garden is welcoming to human visitors, but not so much to critters. Design by Katrina Leonidov Fairchild

Small Spaces

With very little front yard to work with, the owners of this well-decorated home opted to show off their green thumbs with large window boxes. By allowing the multicolored flowers to drape low along the house, they really take advantage of every available space. Design by HGTV fan kmphelps

Nice Curves

Eileen Kelly, owner of Dig Your Garden Landscape Design in the San Francisco area, transformed a large, barren landscape into several relaxing spaces, joined by curving pathways to provide privacy and space for entertaining. Colorful drought-tolerant companion plants including 'Big Ears', lavender, Snow in Winter, penstemon, Breath of Heaven and New Zealand flax provide a variety of textures and colors year-round in this northern California yard.

Pathway to Heaven

The main flagstone pathway intersects with decomposed granite paths that meander along colorful planting beds and lead to a private sitting area to the right of the home. "The Forest Pansy trees add vertical interest and echo the tones of the New Zealand flax," says landscape designer Eileen Kelly at Dig Your Garden Landscape Design.

Make Room for Roses

A stately pergola provides another outdoor "room" in the garden, and its pillars echo those used for the front gate entrance (seen in the photo’s background.) "I chose climbing roses to soften the trellis and provide a nice color contrast, and the decomposed granite throughout the area provides a low-maintenance surface," says landscape designer Eileen Kelly.

Make Water Work

This front garden in Mill Valley, California was transformed into a vibrant and unique low-water landscape by Eileen Kelly of Dig Your Garden landscape design. The vibrant plant palette includes Germander sage, orange sedge, echinacea, snake flower (Bulbine frutescens 'Hallmark') and Daphne odora 'Marginata'. "These plants provide an abundance of textures and colors in both leaf form and flowers year-round," says Eileen Kelly.

Silver Carpet Ride

"The homeowner was tired of traditional lawn, so we replaced it with silver carpet (Dymondia margaretae), a drought-tolerant ground cover that can handle foot traffic," says landscape designer Eileen Kelly.

Autumn Rhapsody

"The garden is still vibrant in autumn, brightened by the purple-red fall tones of the smoke tree shrub and the black-eyed Susans bloom until early winter," says Eileen Kelly. This seating area provides privacy and a sense of rest and relaxation.

Barking Up the Right Trees

The owner of this Dallas, Texas-area house, a European-raised artist, gave landscaper Rebecca Winn of Whimsical Gardens a simple challenge: "Make it feel like home." Winn's design rose to the occasion, introducing the textures of the forest using junipers, cedars, and pines and plantings peeking out from behind boulders.

Color Avalanche

Red knockout roses and pink Indian hawthorns shield a hidden front patio, while blue point juniper, roses, lamb's ear, and blue atlas cedar provide an avalanche of color. "We also added window boxes to the house to enhance the Swiss effect," says Rebecca Winn of Whimsical Gardens.

Small Space Smarts

Lavender, purple, pink and white blooms create a colorful mix to accent this home's blue-green exterior. "I chose plants that would bloom consecutively: wisteria in March, agapanthus in May, roses in June, and so on," says landscape designer Angela Price, owner of Eden Condensed, a Los Angeles, CA firm specializing in small-space design. Price also chose to let the rose bush grow in a natural shape instead of pruning in order to better fit the "cottage" theme.

Secret Garden

White iceberg roses and pink climbing roses spill over a charming white fence and arbor, flanked by French lavender and pink daisies. "I wanted to create a 'secret garden' feel that still allowed the house to be seen from the street," says Price.

Planter Punch

"I love to incorporate containers into my gardens as they add vertical interest and color," says Price. This planter contains ajuga (bugleweed), sweet potato vine and strawberries. Hot pink gomphrena in the foreground creates contrast and colorful appeal.

Height Is Might

When designing a landscape, Joshua Kien, owner of JK Designs in Chicago, IL, follows three principles: use height differentials to create a layered look, evoke the four seasons with a rotation of blooms, and plan for long-term growth periods. In this urban home in Chicago's Roscoe Village neighborhood, Kien planted 'Knock Out' roses, hydrangea and weigela for perpetual blooming spring, summer, and fall; and boxwood for a lush green in winter.

Curves Ahead

The home's limestone facade is mimicked by the flagstone path, while a red cherry tree helps pull the home's red brick into the landscape. "Curves in the planting help transition and balance the straight lines, and soften the home's hard surfaces with curves," says Kien.

Tiny Yard Landscaping

Black-eyed Susans and a vine-covered garden bench give this tiny front yard casual charm. Designer Julie Orr used mulch and ornamental grasses to keep the yard low maintenance.

Terraced Front Yard Landscaping

This Santa Rosa, California home features stone slab steps and patio landings with a stucco wall, curved steel walls and boulders for retaining. The multi-level garden boasts a mixed Mediterranean palette of green-grey foliage, ornamental grasses and lavender and yellow flowers. Tall containers are used with Italian cypress for vertical interest.

Landscaping Around a Large Driveway

Confronted with a sea of concrete separating thin patches of yard, Allen Land Design used cranes to bring in mature olive trees to soften the entrance to the home.

Shop This Look

Photo By: Image courtesy of Eileen Kelly at Dig Your Garden Landscape Design

Photo By: Image courtesy of Eileen Kelly at Dig Your Landscape Design

Photo By: Image courtesy of Eileen Kelly of Dig Your Garden Landscape Design

Photo By: Image courtesy of Rebecca Winn of Whimsical Gardens

Photo By: Image courtesy of Angela Price of Eden Condensed

Photo By: Image courtesy of Joshua Kien of JK Designs

Photo By: Image courtesy of Julie Orr Design

Photo By: Image courtesy of Allen Land Design

Photo By: Image courtesy of Allen Land Design.

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