Sheila Schmitz This is very helpful. I've been puzzled by what to do in my own front yard, and this is making me see that the privacy screen I want can be so much more than that.

Billy Goodnick Sheila: Sometimes all it takes is standing on your head after spinning around and jumping on a trampoline to shed a fresh light on things .

Sheila Schmitz lol. I'll start with the trampoline and report back!

Pamela Bateman Garden Design Your sketch illustrates the idea very well and the pictures show great examples. More gardens need to follow these simple rules. Thanks. Here is a garden where we did exactly what you describe.

kjdick I love the idea of putting the garden right up front. Any good examples though for a traditional city street with side walk going through? Any good examples of dressing up the curb?

katyhollis I love this idea, but there is always a fence. We live in a neighborhood where we cannot have a fence in the front yard. Any examples of curbside gardening without a fence structure?

tsudhonimh katyhollis - the blue house's plan would work without the fence, and the second sketch shows something with no fence.

Jay Sifford Garden Design Great article, Billy. There's nothing wrong with being a self serving gardener. After all, it's your money and your time. I had to laugh when I read the first part of your article because people stop here all the time to look, leave notes in the mailbox etc.
I also enjoyed seeing that some of your photographic examples had seating areas in the front yard. This is so overlooked and really a shame. Since most homes these days don't have big front porches where neighbors can gather, it's a really nice thing to see. Even if it's not used (which would be a shame), it still makes a garden space look inviting.

lsbol Actually, people stop by my Cape Cod home all the time during the summer to ask me about my hydrangeas!

mommabear12 @katyhollis- What if you used shrubbery to form a "living" fence? Boxwoods would be perfect for this. You could also use raised beds. Blessings.

Stone & Land, LLC Amen Billy, I've given the same sage advice to many in the design dilemma section when they ask for advice on their curb appeal. Views from the inside to outside rooms and spaces are more important than "foundation" plantings pasted up against the house. A front yard courtyard patio is so appealing. Nice examples.

Billy Goodnick Katyhollis: Reread the paragraph headed AFTER and check out the sketch. You don't need a fence to create a backgroup for the two-way planting. In fact, I prefer using vegetation because it adds more depth to the plant palette. Unfortunately, while skimming through the vast collection of photos at my disposal at Houzz, I wasn't able to find any plant-only "ridges", hence the drawing. BTW: That's Biff the Wonder Spaniel, I'm walking. Cute, eh?

1655graff You ask, "but where's the reward for yourself?" We walk our dog twice daily and receive compliments on our yard quite often during those walks. But that reward does take "living" and "in the neighborhood" (not just residing indoors).

Our yard is narrow (about 1 cars length), long, and has a steep slope between the house and the sidewalk. When we bought it, it was a "moonscape" (red lava rock and narrow concrete walkway) over laiden with overgrown Junipers (low water and deer resistant "privacy" hedge making the street impossible to see).

We first got rid of all the Junipers. Removing their trunks and roots was not easy. Those closest to the sidewalk/street (and thus down the slope of the yard) we replaced with the look of a cottage garden (deliberate hodge-podge low water perrinials). The bees and the hummingbirds love them. Another welcomed reward.

We next removed the layer of lava rocks and concrete walkway, and put in 2 beddings and an eco-lawn (low water grass) by seed after we saw how well it performed at the Sunset Magazine offices (across the San Francisco Bay). Ours is doing likewise. In one of the beddings is a deciduous, flowering Magnolia and under flowers and shrubs. It and its bedding is meant to help mask a telephone pole off the corner from the picture window. The other is a row of ornamental grass along part of the foundation. The beds and lawn are meant to be looked at from the house, from the driveway, and the street (the 3 main viewing angles of the yard).

When we refinanced the house (during this housing bust), the appraiser immediately saw what we'd done to the front yard, and she told us we were financially smart. Another reward. She especially liked the formal, by seed, low water lawn. She saw it as a smart contemporization, in synch with our overall updating of the house.

So the rewards will come -- social, ecological, economical -- when you incorporate it and its foibles into the way people (you, your guests, and your neighbors) and nature (bugs, bees, hummingbirds, and even deer) live through your yard. Have fun being creative!

deathraver My house actually has it written into code, no fence can ever be in front and it should always appear as if the public park across the street is flowing into my yard with nothing blocking that flow, so plantings in front of the yard wouldn't work. The side has an old iron fence with sunflower designs and roses that people do stop and compliment often.

Pamela Bateman Garden Design @deathraver I love your old iron fence and roses! Beautiful house too!

Carolina Girl I live by the lake and recently read and article on rain gardens. We do have a lot of runoff here when it rains and I would love to try this method of retaining and naturally filtering the water that runs into the lake. My main concern is mesquitos breeding. Does anyone have a working rain garden?

Billy Goodnick Joyce: Not sure of the date, but I'll be writing a post about rain gardens soon. Stay tuned. In the meantime, here's an article I wrote for my blog in Santa Barbara around storm water management... http://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?nid=109299

sclawson If you're someone who likes going barefoot or is a little wobbly on her feet, even with shoes, you won't like a crushed stone or gravel path. Been there, trying to jazz up my garden on the cheap. Hated it and had a lot of clean-up work to redo it the right way. it can look very pretty, but in the long-run isn't all that functional.

Mona Love all of these...just gave me some wonderful ideas for spring..thank you for this fabulous post!

Liquidscapes Always looking to add value to these articles, so I am posting more images for everyone to enjoy and be inspired!!

Liquidscapes Here are a few more, enjoy!! If anyone wants to see the before images, let me know. They truly tell the story!!

Stone & Land, LLC @Liquidscapes, I think your picture of the brown shingle sided house is the best example of what the author was writing about, using your yard to maximize the garden as seen from inside the house. It has nice curb appeal too. I looked through your Before and After Project board. Nice transformations. Like the stonework for the walls and walkways. By the way you also have some killer pools.

Liquidscapes Thank you!! The one project you are referring to was a unique situation. With a beautiful and intimate front porch, we wanted to create a space as if the owners felt they were sitting in there rear yard. There is a small water feature/focal point centered by the open porch as well. The views from the home to the road were not desirable, so we wanted to mask and soften them with plantings to create height, opposed to lawn.

The Color People Billy, this is nice stuff! Hat's off! (not yours)

hausbucher These pictures are terrific- what a great idea to be able to see the garden from inside the house!