Hi folks — I’ve been trying to add biodiversity to my front lawn and also make a nice visual impact
The house is very “big forehead” square and boxy so I thought adding these beds and boxwoods would be a great way to add more life and also add dimension but I’m really unhappy with the way it came out
The red and straight lines are too bold and rigid so it’s got a formal/stiff look that just really doesn’t look good
Even if I take the red brick out and maintain a mulch edge I think it’s still gonna look too stiff — anybody have suggestions? Any help is much appreciated! 🌿❤️
by zealotry-13
21 Comments
let the bushes grow big enough to cover the bricks and it won’t matter anymore.
Is the house leaning to the right?
I would do a much larger bed with a curve, from along the front of the house down along the walkway. Look up some inspo online, and some easy care native perennials and native ornamental grasses for your area.
Paint the bricks the same blue as your siding.
Give it a couple years. Once the stuff you’ve planted in the mulch bed and the bushes against the house grow, it will look better.
I’d also plant a tree in the front yard. You need some height to balance out the house and I’m sure the shade will help in summer
I’m not sure of the rationale behind having one unpainted beam on your porch, but other than that I think this looks great. Depending on where you are, maybe sprinkle some clover seed on the grassy bits.
Judging by the itty bitty Adirondack chair, I’m guessing you have kids? Maybe replacing the bricks with small stones & letting your kids paint some of them would give it a more charming, homey, organic look.
Not a fan of boxwoods, they’re boring and smell like cat piss. I’d make the beds wider and add flowering perennials, wildflowers, something of ecological value
If you like sheared shrubs then leave them, add a hydrangea that promises to only get 3-4′ tall but wider would be great to left corner and another between the right most shrubs on the right side. Then for now dig out a much larger border, 2-4′ away from the sheared shrubs and hydrangea swooping over to the entry path but keeping it 3-4′ away from the sidewalk this time. Leave the boxwoods where they are and fill around with low growing plants with tall flower stems like heuchera. I’ve got a succulent called Bulbine as my entry path border and it’s just so fun walking through a mist of flowers with permanent lush green leaves only 1′ tall along the walk.
This way you have some informality and landscape will have more impact but don’t have to remove anything. If you are comfortable with this then remove more lawn, add a small tree half way between property line and front door. Suspect it belongs on the left side but put up a faux tree like a volunteer holding an umbrella over head on either side to see what’s what. Move the lawn edge to 4-5′ away from the baby tree and add more plants up to 2-3′ of it.
I think covering your walkway would be regrettable. Instead I’d expand each side into a “D” shape – keep the straight side against the path and expand into the lawn in a curve. Add natives.
needs more flowers and color. gardening and landscape *can* be a continual process and progress.
5 truckloads of mulch
More mulch! More beds! That black mulch (fertimulch is what its called here) is gorgeous & super effective at adding nutrients while somehow also being pretty decent weed suppression. Make those beds bigger & plant more stuff! The black contrast is beautiful & super easy to clean up every year. We just did ours in 30 min. Get one of those weed hoes (too lazy to look up the name), scrape up the weeds, rake them up & mix up the top layer, looks like new.
Boxwoods will get pretty large. I would make the beds 4-5 feet wide and connecting to the other bed and the walkway on the wide. Put the boxwoods as far back as possible away from the walkway. Fill the front with shorter flowering plants.
I think you will like this a lot better once the plants are larger and fill in. Be sure to water daily to help the boxwoods get established.
IMO, you could do without the brick. I don’t think it is adding anything to the overall look.
I’d swap out a boxwood or two with a Lilac or Snowball bush, somwthing with some life and color. Maybe do a border of hostas in front of them with some flowers.
Be patient, unless you’re a pro this stuff takes time and errors and your ideas and tastes change as yoi learn more.
I’d swap out a boxwood or two with a Lilac or Snowball bush, somwthing with some life and color. Maybe do a border of hostas in front of them with some flowers.
Be patient, unless you’re a pro this stuff takes time and errors and your ideas and tastes change as you learn more
I’d swap out a boxwood or two with a Lilac or Snowball bush, something with some life and color. Maybe do a border of hostas in front of them with some flowers.
Be patient, unless you’re a pro this stuff takes time and errors and your ideas and tastes change as you learn more
It takes three years to see the full stature of native perennials so get some native annuals for color in the meantime.
Take out way more grass and plant some small native trees on both sides at an informal angle like curtain bangs for big foreheads.
Connect the mulch beds along the sidewalk and by the bushes facing the right side of the house. Consider adding some bushes along the house and like a hydrangea halfway between the house and sidewalk.
You’re right, there is too much going on vertically and it looks visually unbalanced. Widening the beds would help, and adding a bed on the left side (while a lot of work) would make a big difference. Best solution (I think) would be to make a bed along the left side of your house for the boxwoods- to lengthen the horizontal visual interest, and then put native perennials and grasses in the brick beds, ordering them shortest closest to the curb to tallest near the house, to add depth and dimension. Easiest solution would be to plant short to tallest plants in between your boxwoods and adding large potted plants of different sizes to the left side.
1. Widen the front walkway so it is as wide as the steps. Your current design emphasizes the narrowness of the walk. Add pavers or concrete.
2. Frame the walkway with a wider border of plants – irregular on the outer edge. Use varied height and include ornamental grasses for fast height.
3. The layout is unbalanced – too much to the right and nothing to the left of the house. Add plants on the left side.
4. All your plantings are below windowsill height, making the “big forehead” look even bigger. Pick a couple of places where you can have a tall, skinny plant or small tree (small flowering tree could be good) to add height.
5. The clipped formal “meatball”shrubs make the square house look more square. If you let the shrubs get a more natural feathery shape it will soften the look.
Get rid of the lawn for a start.
**[edit: typo]**