8 Front Yard Landscaping Ideas from the Experts at Tilly
By: Blythe Yost
This is a guest post from Tilly Design, a women-owned online landscape company that creates custom plans for your yard. What brick&batten does for your home exterior design, Tilly does for your landscaping. Each of our companies has a specialized area of expertise, with deep experience in our respective niches. However, we understand that our services go hand-in-hand, which is why we’ve been referring our clients to Tilly — and all of them have come back raving about their results. Here’s expert guidance from Tilly’s CEO and Co-Founder & Landscape Architect, Blythe Yost, on front yard landscaping ideas that will maximize your curb appeal.
[Be sure to read all the way to the end for a special incentive for brick&batten readers! It will make you want to meet your designer and dig in to your landscaping project ASAP… ]
Understanding your garden style is a helpful piece of the puzzle when contemplating front yard landscaping ideas for your home. See below for an overview of how to achieve certain styles through landscape design elements. Not sure about your style? Take Tilly’s style quiz to figure it out!
#1 // Modern Landscaping Ideas
Modern landscaping narrows in on the principles of classic geometry. If the front of your house is a modern aesthetic, mimic the existing architecture of the home. Rectangles, squares and circles can translate into long linear beds, perfectly rounded patios and rectilinear reflecting pools. Incorporate a smaller color palette for plant material and a more neutral palette for hardscape. Plant material should be arranged in deliberate and repetitive masses. This front yard look is a clean design that allows your eye to travel to focal points, rather than stopping to focus on individual objects.
Key Design Elements:
- Small & repetitive plant palette
- Classic geometry
- Neutrals
#2 // Cottage Landscaping Ideas
Cottage style has the least amount of design ‘rules,’ but reflects an organized chaos that can allow your personal style to shine through. For a cottage front yard, create an informal planting scheme that is hemmed in with pathways, fencing, and grass. Plants should be grouped and can be repeated with a variation of heights so that the eye moves up and down through the space. Rounded and curvilinear beds and pathways will give an organic feel to the space. Plentiful blooms and colors are a must in a cottage style garden. Bespoke accents, such as birdbaths, decorative trellises, obelisks, and birdhouses will complete this look.
Key Design Elements:
- Large and free-styled plant palette
- Planned organization not needed
- Bright and colorful
#3 // Classic Landscaping Ideas
Classic curb appeal should be balanced and symmetrical. These gardens are rooted in a strong axis and centered around points within the existing architecture. Classic landscaping ideas for the front of your house should stick to a simple color palette of mostly green, focusing on texture diversity. You can incorporate a simple color palette throughout. Create focal points at the end of site lines, such as topiaries at the end of hedges. Classic designs will repeat forms and are well planned.
Key Design Elements:
- Repetitive (mostly)
- Symmetry and order
- Simple color
#4 // Eclectic Landscaping Ideas
With eclectic landscaping design, rules are out the window, so feel free to mix styles and influences. Textiles can help play a big role in bringing together this front of house look. Mix colors and patterns that compliment each other with outdoor furniture, printed rugs, colorful planters, and more. Juxtapose new with vintage pieces. In an eclectic design, the landscape beds act as a canvas for painting with color and placing blooms alongside evergreen plants to create an overall work of art. Place focal pieces, whether it’s a statue or a beautiful grouping of your favorite flowers, within the landscape beds for discovery.
Key Design Elements:
- No rules
- Mix of style and influence
- Colorful and bright
#5 // Formal Landscaping Ideas
One of the easiest ways to create a formal design aestheic is to center your design around an axis or focal point feature, such as a tiered fountain or beautiful hedge. This front of house landscape will have clean lines and linear beds that should be clearly defined. It’s important to create structure within this style garden. This can be accomplished with evergreen hedges or hardscape materials, but the structure should last all year. All design elements should have balance and symmetry with a simple color palette, using mostly green and white.
Key Design Elements:
- Smaller, repetitive plant palette
- Symmetric and balanced
- Green and white
#6 // Tropical Landscaping Ideas
Go bold with color and shapes of plant material to achieve tropical curb appeal. Add lush layers with large glossy leaves mixed with vibrant blooms. A full landscape bed will help create a jungle-inspired oasis or you can select fewer plants that scream tropical and promintenly place them in your beds. A quick way to get this look is to incorporate a water feature such as a waterfall into a pool or a bubbling fountain – just the sound will help capture this feel. Add tropical inspired structures, such as a tiki hut, swing on a covered porch, or swim up bar in the pool to top it off.
Key Design Elements:
- Lush layers
- Mix glossy and vibrant
- Lots of color
#7 // Southwest Landscaping Ideas
If you’re looking for southwestern front yard landscaping ideas, start with reducing your lawn space. Minimal lawn space, if any lawn, is a quick way to achieve this style. Other options for lawn include groundcover, more drought tolerant prairie-type grass, or synthetic lawns. For this curb appeal, focus on warm tones that will help tie into the natural desert landscape. Think about incorporating colorful accents, like brightly glazed pottery or a colorful accent wall. Other landscaping ideas include using varying types of rock, different gravels, river rock, or boulders to create visual interest. And remember that sparse planting is not a requirement of xeric landscapes.
Key Design Elements:
- Thoughtful plant placement
- Drought-tolerant plant selection
- Warm-toned palette
#8 // Naturalistic Landscaping Ideas
A naturalistic front yard should mimic the surrounding natural landscape. This style should promote biodiversity, natural plant groupings and the use of native plants. This homeowner should utilize a more organic approach to maintaining the landscape such as rain water harvesting, composting, organic pest control and fertilization. This curbed look can be a bit wild and much less manicured. You should allow the landscape to naturally evolve with minimal interference- promoting all phases of the plant life cycle and finding beauty in how the dormant phase presents itself.
Key Design Elements:
- Location-specific plant palette
- Wild and free
- Location-specific color palette
Want specific front yard landscaping ideas for your home?
Perhaps it’s time for you to partner with a professional to reimagine your outdoors. Our colleagues at Tilly Design have been gracious enough to offer a 10% off promotion for readers of the brick&batten blog. Use the promo code BATTEN10 when purchasing one of Tilly’s design packages to receive your discount. Don’t sleep on it for too long — this promotion is only available for two weeks (through midnight Eastern time on Tuesday, August 24).
Partner with Tilly on your landscaping and with brick&batten on your home exterior design for a major curb appeal win. Get started on your brick&batten project by filling out our simple questionnaire.
Subscribe for more content like this!
