The front yard shapes the image of your home for visitors, passersby, potential buyers — and you.
From hardscaping to plants, thoughtful changes to your landscape can create a view that you’ll love coming home to.
“I definitely treat the front yard differently than the backyard,” says Lisa Bauer, the owner of Chartreuse Landscape Design in Seattle and winner of multiple awards at the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival. “In any area, I focus on form and structure. But especially in the front, I place the major architectural plants and features very strategically.”
We asked Bauer and another local landscape designer, Courtney Olander, owner of Shoreline-based Olander Garden Design, to share their best tips for revving up your yard’s curb appeal.
1. Pick a mood
Assess your home’s style and predominant colors and materials, and let them guide your choices of hardscape, decorative accessories and even plants. Generally, Bauer says, bold shapes and textures align with modern styles, and more intricate designs with historic homes.
For example, she says, brick, cobblestone and bluestone paver paths pair well with cottage, Victorian or Craftsman styles, while 2-by-2-foot concrete pavers will complement a modern home. For plantings, ribbons of grasses will accentuate a midcentury-modern better than a frizzy flower border.
2. Create a journey to the front door
You don’t want to give away the full view of your front door too soon, says Olander. Instead, you can add a little mystery by curating memorable experiences along the path.
“For me, one of the main things I try to do is take away the straight shot to the door” by incorporating a curving or side-stepping path, Olander says. “It’s a combination of creating a journey for the visitor and, on the flipside, giving the owner a little bit of privacy.”
Bauer agrees. “A longer path to the doorway can create street appeal, and it slows the person down, so they can really enjoy the walk,” she says.
If you are creating a new path, your home deserves a gracious one. Bauer says the most comfortable paths are a minimum of 4 feet wide, which allows two people to stroll side by side.
Safety is an element of comfort, too: Paths should be well lit and include railings on stairways. And make sure you can see the house numbers from the road — you want your pizza delivery driver to be able to find you.
If you’re not ready to redesign your path, consider adding an eye-catching feature along the path you already have. It could be an arbor or a plant weeping over the pathway, or something to walk around, like a pot, birdbath or bench.
Bauer says the journey to your house starts at the sidewalk or driveway. She likes to pull the path through the parking strip to the door, unifying the design. A gate, she says, goes a long way to creating “feel-good appeal.” She uses design elements like these to highlight key “thresholds” along the way, at turning points and landings, creating the feeling of extra garden rooms.
3. Make the porch a priority
The front porch is where you want to pull out all the stops.
The porch is a great place to feature a plant: Some of Olander’s favorites include the fragrant daphne for some sensory romance, and an uplit Japanese maple to add drama.
For decor, consider a showy container or sculpture. You can add some personality with an outdoor rug, interesting door hardware, a cool address plaque or a specialty mailbox.
Does your home offer shelter from the rain at the door? If not, perhaps a portico can provide coverage overhead. Is there room enough on the porch for two people, or does the door require one to step back when it swings open? This might be the time to increase the size of the door pad or add a mini patio, if space allows.
If you have the luxury of a roomy front porch, add seating for one or two for a welcoming effect. It can be as simple as a single garden stool or as elaborate as a swinging bench. Olander says she’s getting more requests for front yard seating to create opportunities to chat and connect with neighbors.
4. Plan for year-round interest
For a landscape that wows in every season, many designers focus on “winter interest” first, incorporating fall colors, flashy bark or winter berries before adding summer perennials.
“A landscape designer’s job is to plan those evergreen shrubs and trees to make sure [the homeowners] have a really good variety of leaf shapes and textures year round,” Bauer says. “My rule of thumb is [a ratio of] two-thirds to three-quarters evergreen to one-third to one-quarter deciduous plants.”
Hedges provide structure and can serve to corral varied flowers.
Choosing plants with fragrance, movement and ephemeral blooms will enrich the garden with extra dimensions of scent and seasonality, Bauer says.
5. Screen out unwanted views
Garden design is akin to movie-set design: You are charting a course for the viewer that leads to beautiful sights around the yard.
Olander prefers to screen cars and garages from view by creating a division between the driveway and the house. It also works to take the focus off your trash bins or your neighbor’s trampoline. Evergreen hedges make a solid screen (they’re also good for masking a home’s foundation), while grasses, laser-cut metal screens and trellises are good see-through barriers.
“Suddenly, an eyesore becomes a feature,” Olander says.
A shot of color from an art piece or plant container can beckon the eye across the yard, or cap off a long view. Bauer recommends placing an art piece on a garden gate or at the end of a side yard.
6. Repeat for added impact
While you want some contrast and a variety of textures, Bauer says your design has a much greater impact when you repeat colors, materials and shapes. She likes to place three trees across the front yard, often zig-zagged, to make the space feel wider. She also recommends mass plantings in swaths, perhaps staggered on either side of a path.
When it comes to plants, Olander says, “Get at least three to five of them, because your eye wants to see repeating plants, shapes or colors so it can move through the garden and your brain doesn’t get overloaded.”
7. Commit to a color palette
Olander likes to pick a color palette, then stick with it. Echo a chartreuse gate with a pot in the same hue down the path, she suggests, then plant a patch of yellow Carex across the yard.
Both Olander and Bauer like to complement house colors with their plant and decor choices, such as adding a red maple near a brick house or black mondo grass by dark trim. To keep it simple, Olander prefers to create a palette of three analogous colors (adjacent on the color wheel, like yellow, red and orange) or two complementary colors (opposite on the color wheel, like yellow and purple). Bauer says she likes the effect created by using two main colors and adding white for pop.
Our experts agree that if you can keep your recipe simple, repeating the main elements throughout, and toss in some opposites for spice, you’ll have a yard that will delight you and the neighbors year round.