Help: Front Yard Out of Control
As a full-time professional and someone who is averse to gardening, I find my front yard an nuisance. Every year, the weeds grow out of control and it makes me anxious and upset. The issue is I can’t figure out what I want to do with it. I want something very easy to maintain but…
As a full-time professional and someone who is averse to gardening, I find my front yard an nuisance. Every year, the weeds grow out of control and it makes me anxious and upset. The issue is I can’t figure out what I want to do with it. I want something very easy to maintain but that looks cool and not too expensive. I would like to reach out to the collective wisdom of Brownstoner to see if they have any suggestions.
Thank you.
Or put boxwood in the clay pots.
I’d stick to the pink colors you have now, since they match the house. Or pink and white.
myrtle might be another name for vinca. it’s cheap and nice small dark green leaves, purple flowers in spring.
If it were me, I’d rip out one or two of the ugly shrubs and put in a couple of small trees–dogwood, redbud, maybe a cherry, closer to the street. Sorry to say but I think that japanese maple looks terrible.
if you had a low fence or low stone wall around these two strips, it would look better. Part of the scraggly-ness is that the edge is undefined.
gardens need to be tended…weeds need to be removed, slugs squashed, gardens watered and fertilized… if you do not enjoy these tasks, hire a gardener, since there is no such thing as a maintenance free garden. I spend an hour a day weeding and pruning before going to work and find it soothing
My neighbors have a large square of their front yard planted all over with myrtle. It’s evergreen and looks lovely in the spring covered with periwinkle flowers.
You could also put two clay pots by the front door filled with geraniums or annuals or whatever. That would be cute.
I can’t quite see everything clearly in the picture, but it looks like you have a good start already. If you plant one more perennial shrub on the front right, as BHS suggests, that should pretty much take care of it. I would suggest underplanting with pretty annuals to keep the weeds at bay, but BHS’s suggestion of perennial groundcover will be lower maintenance (less planting, less watering). Can’t quite see what is going on in the left — maybe you need two more shrubs? As BHS says, they should be 3-4 feet when fully grown. Figure out how many hours of sun a day the area gets. If it’s six or more, look for full sun plants. If three or less, shade plants. In between, part sun plants. Etc. You do have to water until the plants become established, and in very high heat you may have to water every other day any way.
Also, just fyi, certain types of heirloom roses are easy to grow. Nothing will kill them. That would look nice by the fence.
You want to use evergreen perennials. If you’re designing it yourself and don’t feel super confident in your design abilities, I’d keep it really simple with a row of small shrubs on each side of the walkway (~3ft tall max) and maybe something taller (4-5 ft max)at the ends by the house and something more decorative by the street gate. Get plants that when mature will not be larger than your space requires–this may mean 3-5 years of waiting for them to fill in but at least they’ll be low maintenance. And then I’d add a groundcover perennial bordering the sidewalk so there’s no room for weeds to grow. The groundcover doesn’t necessarily need to be evergreen since weeds aren’t much of an issue when it’s cold. The symmetry will help it look tidy.