BEFORE: Most gardens are designed as a wedge that slopes toward the street, with taller plants against the house and lower perennials, ground covers and grasses tapering toward the curb.
That's fine if your only concern is what other people think about your garden, but where's the reward for yourself, given the time, money and imagination you've invested?
by Billy Goodnick
That's fine if your only concern is what other people think about your garden, but where's the reward for yourself, given the time, money and imagination you've invested?
AFTER: Why not build a ridge into your front-yard garden — a fence, wall or medium-height grouping of shrubs that serves as both a backdrop for your street-facing plants and a generous composition you can see from your front windows?
My rule of thumb is to direct one-third of the composition toward the street and the rest so it can be viewed from inside the house. After all, you probably spend more time looking at your yard from the house than you do from across the street.
by Billy Goodnick
My rule of thumb is to direct one-third of the composition toward the street and the rest so it can be viewed from inside the house. After all, you probably spend more time looking at your yard from the house than you do from across the street.
This garden is totally about what's viewed by the owners. It has a stoutly constructed white fence as a neutral color foil for colorful flowers that are high along the fence and dip down as they approach the lawn.
by Woodburn & Company Landscape Architecture, LLC
A narrow strip of grass leads the eye to a uniform massing of daylilies here. The rustic wood fence not only serves as a backdrop for these perennials, but divides the property into public and semiprivate spaces. The inner plants are arranged en masse, blocking the view of the curb from the house without being unneighborly.
by Westover Landscape Design, Inc.
As revealed in this aerial view of the same yard, the plant massing to the left of the fence also provides a measure of intimacy for a gravel-topped conversation area.
by Westover Landscape Design, Inc.
Where space is limited, do away with lawn and create masses of dense shrubs and perennials that greet arriving visitors and say "hello" when you open the door to fetch the morning paper.
Provincetown Cottage by Becky Harris
By setting the front yard entrance to the side, this designer created a courtyard feeling while allowing enough space for a handsome street-side garden.
by Lankford Associates Landscape Architects
As revealed from this side view of the same area, the inner courtyard is a space unto itself, not only enriching the arrival view for guests, but acting as a work of art when viewed from the porch and inside the house.
Tour more of this Washington farmstead
by Dan Nelson, Designs Northwest Architects
Tour more of this Washington farmstead
Lawn alternatives, as in this garden in Santa Barbara, California, are an increasingly strong trend, especially in low-rainfall climates. After removing the existing turfgrass, the designer created an abstract interpretation of a creek using ornamental grasses and colorful succulents. Where the garden meets the street, the plants become denser and more massive, providing a backdrop for the broad swaths of foliage texture.
by Kiesel Design - Landscape Architecture
With only 12 feet between the sidewalk (right) and the front-facing garage wall, there was not much room to create privacy for a path leading to a bistro table and chairs around the bend in this yard. Cape reed (Chondropetalum tectorum) stands tall, forming a vertical screen, while yellow poker plant (Kniphofia 'Malibu') and germander sage (Salvia chamaedryoides) add a colorful punch. The lush burgundy foliage of Forest Pansy redbud (Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy') adds drama and will eventually arch over the path.
by Billy Goodnick
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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.
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!