Growing a Front Yard Flower Garden (Tips & Ideas)

Don’t relegate your beautiful flower gardens to the backyard. We aren’t necessarily talking about turning your entire front lawn into a meadow, we’re all about growing a front yard flower garden that you can be proud of and that your neighbors will love!

Plus, you can give your front yard instant curb appeal by planting a flower garden! There are countless ways to make beautiful front yard flower gardens. We’re sharing some design ideas and tips to get you thinking about creating your own front yard flower garden.

Whether your front yard is a blank slate or you want to turn your current landscape into a lush sanctuary, there are many ways to decorate and customize your front yard! These ideas aren’t for homeowners who can afford to hire a landscape designer and company. Our ideas are for home gardeners that love a good DIY project.

The hardest part, however, is deciding on a specific style. Since there are so many options, you’ll need to consider your home’s overall design, color scheme, and, of course, your budget. We hope to help you with these things though. I suggest grabbing a pencil and paper and taking down notes as you read.

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What to Consider First When Planning Your Front Yard Flower Garden

Sun conditions – Depending on the location of your house, your front yard may get much more (or less) sun than your backyard. Choose plants appropriate for that particular plot of land to set yourself up for success. If you’ve never planned and planted a flower garden before, be sure to check out Flower Gardening 101.

Seasonal color – Most flowers bloom during the summer, making your garden look miraculous in June and July. But what about the other seasons? Will the spent flowers become an eyesore? Find ways to incorporate color throughout the seasons. Check out our signature guide – Designing with Perennials for 3 Seasons of Blooms

Your home’s design – Think like a designer. It’s best to select a color scheme that fits the color of your home and its general style. For example, a whimsical cottage-style garden might not be the best fit for a modern house with clean lines. If you have a modern style home and you still want a cottage-style flower bed, perhaps you can save that idea for your backyard.

Maintenance needs – Will your new flowers require ongoing care and maintenance, or can you plant once and forget them for a while? Prioritize perennial flowers whenever possible to save money and time!

Choose your focal point – The goal of a great landscape design is to direct the eye to a specific location. In the front yard, that is generally the front door. Use plants of varying heights, textures, and colors to guide the eye to the door.

Important to Note: I hate to be a party pooper before we even get started, but it’s important to make sure your plan meets with your city’s codes and ordinances or your homeowner’s association. It’s better to be safe and check first.

Front Yard Flower Garden Ideas

Reading through these ideas will help you decide how you want your front yard to look.

Do you still want some grassy areas and a few front yard flower beds?
How far do you want to take these ideas? I always suggest starting small.
Do you want this to be a project that will take a few seasons to complete?

Ditch the grass. This might be a bit controversial, but bear with me! In some locations, maintaining a lush, green lawn can be quite a feat. It requires ongoing fertilization, seeding, thatching, watering, and more, which is especially challenging in dry, arid regions. Many people are moving away from the traditional lawn, and there are quite a few attractive yet low-maintenance options. See How to Convert Lawn Into Garden Space

Fill the yard with flowers – Add a winding path through your front yard and fill it with flowers of different heights and colors for a romantic, cottage-like appearance. You may need to deal with spent blooms and some pruning in the off-season, but you won’t have to bother with mowing anymore! This is more practical for small front yard flower gardens.

Install a rock garden – This is a popular choice for a more modern-looking home. Add a few large boulders, some creeping plants to fill in the gaps, and flowering sedums, desert roses, or sage for a pop of color. See Using Rocks in Your Flower Garden for some fun and practical ideas.

Build a Rain Garden in Your Front Yard

Rain gardens are an increasingly popular garden design with a slew of practical benefits, like reducing runoff, sending more water to the groundwater, keeping pollutants out of waterways, and more. They can also be quite beautiful as the design grows and changes throughout the season!

Rain gardens generally require adding a low area where water can collect when it rains. When properly planted, these rain gardens can be a stunning focal point! The colorful flowers and greenery look like they’re meant to be there, and the plants will benefit from the extra moisture they collect as well. It’s really a win-win for many gardeners! In a city where we once lived, they were paying homeowners to install rain gardens in newly constructed drainage ditches along certain streets. It was fun to watch those rain gardens evolve and it was easy to see which homeowners took pride in their rain gardens.

It’s always best to incorporate native plants in your rain garden whenever possible to support local wildlife and pollinators, but you can also plant your favorite easy-care, moisture-loving plants, like coneflowers and summersweet for sunny areas; and astilbe and ferns for shady rain gardens. Do a search for the best plants for rain gardens and include your gardening zone. Add in a few taller plants and fill in the gaps with medium and small-sized plants to draw the eye through the space. When possible, choose perennials that can set deeper roots than short-season annual flowers.

Add Native Plants to Your Front Yard Flower Garden

There’s a growing trend in landscape design towards native plants, and this can be a forward-thinking and aesthetically pleasing option for your front garden. Basically, non-native plants generally aren’t as well adapted to your local area and may require more fertilizing, watering, etc., to help them thrive.

On the other hand, native plants offer many benefits. They tend to be lower maintenance, use less water, and are adapted to thrive. They are also better for local birds, pollinators, and other animals that are adapted to those specific plants.

Plus, you’ll be spoiled for options! There are so many different types of native plants out there, and you’ll be surprised by the variety. It’s a good idea to find a garden center or nursery knowledgeable about native flowers and plants to help you find the best options for your yard.

Pro Tip: If you’re going with native plants, look for those that are long-blooming for the biggest bang for your buck. We have an entire article dedicated to adding native plants to your flower gardens.

Front Yard Flower Garden Design Tips

To some this part can feel overwhelming, especially if you’ve never designed a flower bed. If you need help designing, be sure to check out Flower Garden Design Tips for the Home Gardener.

Add balance – One very traditional and easy way to make your house pop is to use a symmetrical design, especially if your home is square or rectangular. Anchor the front door as the main focal point by adding large pots, small trees, and bushes on either side.

Flowers will add more color, fragrance, and texture to this design and can make your front yard landscape even more attractive. You can plant your favorite bushy flowers in large pots or let them grow to full size next to your front steps or walkway. I especially like the look of flowering shrubs, like hydrangeas, peonies, azaleas, weigelas, spirea, and more.

For a less traditional home, try an asymmetrical design. These will draw the eye around the property instead of directing it right to the front door.

Create a cozy, welcoming space – Your front yard is your guests’ first impression of your home. If you want to make your home really welcoming and warm, it can help to show people where or how they can enjoy the space.

Add a porch swing or a cozy weatherproof chaise lounge, install benches around a water feature or under a tree, etc. Carve out a cozy reading nook or a nice meditation spot. Install string lights or pathway lights to guide your guests through the space. The possibilities are endless, but work with the area you have.

Incorporate shades of color. I have an entire post about winning color combinations for your gardens, but this is especially important for front yard flower gardens. Depending on the size of your outdoor space, choosing the right flowers and plants to fit your space can be overwhelming, particularly if you have a hard time matching colors.

Fun Activity: Print out a large photo of your home, then experiment with adding large green circles or plant-shaped cut-outs on the page to see which design and color scheme looks best for the front of your house.

Try this tip instead! Use shades of one specific color, then add a pop of white (or cream) and a contrasting coloring for visual interest. For example, dark blue irises, medium blue hydrangeas, and pale blue cornflower will all look great together as different shades of blue. Add some white Shasta daisies, feverfew or cosmos and then a pop of yellow or orange, like coneflowers, rudbeckia, or colorful daylilies. This is the best way to find the right colors quickly. The beauty with perennials is that if you don’t get it right the first time, you can always move the plants around.

Plant a Cut Flower Garden in Your Front Yard

If you want to fill your home with colorful bouquets throughout the year, plant a cut flower garden on your front lawn! This is such a fun option, and it’s a great way to spend much more time in your front yard, too. As an added bonus, pollinators will love your cutting garden too.

I have an entire guide about how to grow a cutting garden, which will help you find the right flowers and plants for your garden space. You can either sneak these plants into your existing flower beds or install a raised bed or two for a dedicated growing space.

Make Your Flower Garden a Sensory Oasis

There is a new trend in landscape design that can make any outdoor space much more soothing and relaxing: sensory gardens. Essentially, these gardens add elements that connect with the different senses (color, texture, sound, scent, etc).

Sound – Plant trees that make a beautiful whispering sound in the breeze (like a quaking aspen, pine trees, or ornamental grasses), or install a water feature.
Sight – Add bursts of color, texture, and visual interest with the right plants and flowers. Use contrasting or complementary colors to really catch the eye.
Scent – Plant fragrant flowers, greenery, and even herbs to make your yard smell enchanting.
Texture – Incorporate different textures, like fuzzy silver mound (artemisia) or dusty miller, soft and silky roses, and tall grasses with wispy fronds. Just be sure to choose plants that are safe to touch, beautiful to see and smell amazing!

You might love this post about amazing-smelling perennials.

Incorporating Edible Plants in a Front Yard Flower Bed

Over the past few years, more and more people have started incorporating edible plants and herbs into their landscaping. This immediately makes your yard more practical and useful as you can step right outside your front door and grab the fixings for a salad or fresh herbs.

You’ll often see ornamental kale and cabbage in garden designs, but why not grow edible varieties? Vining plants, like scarlet runner peas and snap peas, can be especially attractive and may benefit from a sunny front yard. These plants will all add aesthetic appeal and visual interest to your yard, but they can also be harvested and changed throughout the year.

If you don’t want to worry about bare patches you need to fill later in the season, choose perennial options to add to your garden bed, such as asparagus, strawberries, raspberries, grapes, or Jerusalem artichokes. You can also fill your flower garden with herbs and medicinal plants to use in your own tinctures, salves, and teas!

I love planting vegetables, herb and flowers all together in one garden bed. Not only is it beautiful, it’s so functional and the best way to companion plant.

Grow a Cottage Garden

If you dream of a romantic cottage garden, there are a few simple ways to get that cozy, whimsical look with your favorite flowers.

Look for weeping, creeping, or vining plants. Trellis some roses, honeysuckle, or wisteria, which add a natural look that makes any yard feel a little more wild.
Embrace curved, organic shapes and ditch the neat and tidy designs. Add a winding path through your flower bed or plant groundcovers between your paving stones for a lush, wild look.
Incorporate several different heights, like tall hollyhocks or larkspur with anemones, daisies, coneflowers, and more.
Add focal points with an arch or a dwarf fruit tree for an extra touch. A white picket fence would be the cherry on top!

Front Yard Entry Gardens

Your front walkway is one of the most visually important parts of your front yard design, as it guides your guests directly to your home. Make your entry stand out by adding flowers along the sidewalk.

There were gardens on both sides of the walk leading to our front porch, so I just went with those and have updated them to my liking over the years. Remember to stick with low-growing flowers, so visitors don’t feel like they have to walk through a jungle to get to your front door.

The Benefits of Having a Front Yard Flower Garden

When you come up with the right design, you’ll know it because your front yard will feel so welcoming and inviting that you’ll instantly feel relaxed when you arrive home. Of course, these updates can also increase your curb appeal and make your home more valuable!

I have been fortunate enough to have front yard flower gardens in most of the homes I have lived in. When I am working in my front yard flower beds, neighbors and passersby always comment how much they love seeing my gardens. It’s a great way to meet people and get better acquitted with your neighbors.

Again, check your local ordinances or homeowner’s association before adding gardens to your front yard.

Do you have ideas for your existing or new front yard flower gardens? I hope so! Feel free to hang out at Gingham Gardens and read some of the linked posts. If you have questions or comments, please feel free to complete the comment form below.

Happy Gardening,
Julie

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