This is the landscaping in the front of our house. It has been like this since we moved in. If it gets too overgrown we trim it back. Neither my husband nor I enjoy yard work. Is there something we could do to the front of our house to make it look nicer? Any low maintenance plant ideas?
by TheHuntress413
5 Comments
If neither of you enjoy yard work I’d suggest hiring a landscaper, and exactly telling them what you want
You hate yard work right now because your foundation bed is way too narrow for those shrubs. Those plants naturally want to be big but they are crammed into a tiny space against the siding. That means you are basically running a barber shop for bushes and constantly fighting nature. The fix is to rip out those tired old shrubs and widen that entire bed by at least three feet pulling the edge further out into the lawn. Giving plants room to breathe is the real secret to zero maintenance.
Once you widen the dirt space you want to plant dwarf evergreens and tough native grasses in sweeping connected masses. Do not scatter random different plants around like polka dots. Pick three reliable dwarf varieties that max out at three feet tall and group them together. Since they stop growing at that height you will literally never have to trim them. Finish it off with a thick layer of natural hardwood mulch to smother the weeds creeping over your walkway.
Before you grab a shovel and start ripping roots you should run a picture of your front porch through the GardenDream web app. It lets you draw out that wider bed and drop in realistic plant layouts right on your screen. It is a solid blueprint tool to figure out exactly how many plants you need to buy so you do not waste a Saturday or a paycheck guessing at the garden center.
I don’t know about the landscaping, but your shutters need to be painted, maybe a richer shade of blue.
You could line the path with some large rocks.
Weeding, trim off the dead growth in Nandinas and remulch