Walking out to get the mail, enjoying the beautiful sunshine, and listening to the birds chirping is a lovely way to begin your day. But have you ever walked out and felt that your front yard needs to look a lot better? You might even remember all the times when people around you talked about curb appeal. The easiest way to get your front yard to look good would be getting a landscaping project done by professionals. But remember that you will have to shell out at least a 1000 bucks to get it done. Sounds expensive?
Thankfully, making your front yard look beautiful doesn’t always mean wiping out your savings account. There are many DIY landscaping ideas available on the internet. All you have to do is roll up your sleeves, choose the idea you like, and get working! We suggest taking out some time to figure out what you like and what fits within your skill levels. Once you do that, what’s left to do is get your creative motor running and make your front yard look gorgeous. Need some easy landscaping ideas? Here you go!
Why is Curb Appeal Important?
Curb appeal might seem like a trendy, hip word but it has been an extremely important element within the real estate market. Before we delve into understanding its importance, let us first make sure that you understand what exactly curb appeal means.
Curb appeal is basically how attractive a house looks when someone looks at it from the street. People who pass by the street generally like looking at houses that have a higher curb appeal. Curb appeal speaks a lot about the overall upkeep of the house. The front yard landscaping, the color of your house, and the overall appearance have a huge impact on the value of the entire property.
Curb appeal is important because it is an effective marketing tool. Potential buyers might choose to go ahead and look at the insides of your house only if they feel that the house looks attractive from the outside. Simply investing in house landscaping and maintaining a charming front yard can increase the value of your entire property by 10-15%. This means that you might be able to earn thousands of extra dollars just by landscaping your front yard.
We understand that many of you might not want to sell your house at this very moment. But that does not mean that you should keep your front yard messy. Investing a little bit of time and money and working on your front yard landscaping might make you feel happy and satisfied with the overall appearance of your house.
Also Read: Home Staging Tips
Simple DIY Front Yard Landscaping Ideas
Before you start looking for DIY landscaping ideas, just take a quick walk around your front yard. You will notice that several minute things end up making a huge difference in the appearance of your front yard. For instance, small cracks in your pavement, wild bushes, dead grass, dead flowers, dry mulch, etc., make your front yard look old and messy.
Taking care of these small problems can majorly enhance the overall appearance of your front yard. While you walk around your yard, note down all such issues. Make sure that you take note of the smallest of problems. Once that’s done, plan out your next move. List down the problems that can be fixed quickly and those which can’t. Unless your front yard needs to get some major work done, we are sure that most of the issues can be fixed after a small trip to a local improvement store.
Make sure that your plan has mapped out all the changes that need to be made in the front yard. Once you have all the ideas in one place, you can start off by purchasing all the necessary stuff. All that’s left to do then is working and letting your plan slowly unfold in front of your eyes.
1. Improve the Lawn
If there are several bald spots all around the front yard and the grass in your lawn is dead, it’s time to breathe some life back into it. This kind of lawn can instantly make your front yard look extremely dull. There are a couple of things you could do to make your lawn look green and fresh.
You can cover the bald spots in three easy steps. First, loosen up the soil in a bald spot. You can use a rake to do this. Then, add about 2-3 inches of compost to the soil. Once that’s done, mix it with the soil with the help of the rake and then smoothen the top.
If you wish to ensure that the nutrients and water are reaching the roots of the grass, consider aerating your lawn. You can do this by renting an aerator machine. Another way of filling in the bald spots and making your lawn look prettier is reseeding your front yard. Growing new grass will certainly make your lawn look greener. You might have to spend roughly $50-$70 to buy a bag of seeds, but this method will make the entire job easy, especially if you have a large front yard.
2. Plant Colourful Flower Beds
The easiest way to make your front yard look attractive is by adding colors. Don’t be afraid to add a splash of vibrant colors to your yard. This can be done by planting flower bushes across your yard. Use these bushes to give some structure to your yard. You could choose to go with the classic way of planting flower bushes along the boundary of your yard. Planting bushes in circular formation across the yard is another way to go about it. Visualize how you want your yard to look and plant flower bushes accordingly.
How do you choose flowers for your front yard? Keep in mind that you want your front yard to look good throughout the year. To make this happen, you need to mix and match a variety of flowers based on when they bloom. Planting a bunch of seasonal flowers along with some evergreens like roses in the mix will ensure that there is a continuous display of several colors throughout the year.
If there are a couple of trees standing tall in the yard with nothing around them, consider it as an opportunity to add more color to the yard. All you have to do is dig up the soil in a circular formation around the tree, plant some seeds or younger plants/shrubs (can be bought from a local nursery), add mulch, and water them daily. Once you do that, you will have blooming bushes around your trees in a matter of a couple of months.
Choose your flowers carefully. Spending a lot of money on purchasing exotic species that won’t even grow in your front yard would be an unwise thing to do. Choose to plant native species. Make sure that the colors compliment each other as a clashing color scheme might not look good.
Also See: How to Start a Flower Garden?
3. Perennials Are A Must
If you want your front yard garden to offer a year-long statement that’s unrivaled, planting perennials is a must. Planting flower beds and other exotic plant varieties undoubtedly is accompanied by you working diligently and caring for them. However, it’s a completely different story when it comes to perennials.
Perennials in general require a lot less care than annuals. This means that you don’t have to constantly worry about them and spend much time watering, weeding, and tending to them. This appeals to those who lead hectic lives and don’t have much time to look after a garden every day.
Not only this, but perennials are also quite cheap which makes them an ideal purchase when you are working on a tight budget. Plants like daylilies and daisies even multiply throughout the year. Once you purchase the seeds of perennial plants, you probably will never have to purchase them again as you can divide the existing plants and replant them in different spots. Despite being extremely low maintenance and cheap, perennials ensure that you witness the most beautiful blooms season after season.
4. Trees Beautify Yards
The larger your front yard is, the more opportunities you have to try out different ideas. Planting a native hardwood tree that provides shade to a part of your house or the yard can never go wrong. You can give your front yard a romantic cottage yard feel with the spectacular fall hues and vibrant spring blossoms.
Most people choose to purchase a robust and hardy native variety that’s generally quite inexpensive. You can find such trees at a local nursery. You should know that you might have to shell out roughly $100-$200 (depending on what you purchase) for the tree in addition to the cost of getting it delivered to your house.
If you have a bigger budget, you can go for a rare tree variety. However, don’t forget that these varieties do require special care and attention. A huge shade tree does add a certain bit of elegance to your yard but ornamental trees sporting vibrant colors can certainly kick things up by a notch.
For instance, although you might have to spend a lot while purchasing an ornamental tree, something like a Japanese maple in your yard is capable of stealing the show. Luckily, some varieties of ornamental trees are quite inexpensive and can be bought by those who are landscaping for the first time and hesitant about spending a lot.
5. Experiment With Stones And Rocks
There are a variety of ways in which stones and rocks can enhance the elegance of your front yard.
Building a stone border in order to cover the edge where the lawn meets your flower beds and other plants is a great landscaping hack. Not only does it give more structure to your yard, but it also has a significant impact on the aesthetic of your overall front yard. It also helps you put a stop to the growth of unnecessary weeds near your flower beds.
Before you begin with the task of border installation, you must decide and acquire the type of stones that would go with the entire aesthetic of your yard. Choosing pavers that clash with the other features of your yard would be a classic landscaping mistake.
Whenever you are ready, start off by digging a 3-inch trench around the borders of your flowerbeds. Once that’s done, you can start arranging your stones. You can then use the soil that you dug up while creating a trench to fill in the gaps and secure the stones in their place.
A lot of times, you might want to walk around in your front yard. However, the fear of stepping over the lawn and spoiling it might stop you from doing that. Enter stone pathways! Lay out a pretty stone pathway that winds through your yard. Constructing such pathways isn’t difficult and it will give your yard a nice rustic look.
Other ideas for utilizing stones and rocks include creating a rock spillway for rain gutters as this will ensure that your yard doesn’t get very muddy during the rainfalls. Similarly, you could also consider adding pea gravel to the borders of your walk away or to the paths that run across in your yard to add to its overall charm.
6. Adorning Your Porch
If you have some extra flowers or plants, you don’t necessarily have to dig up your yard and find space for them. Decorative plants can be utilized to beautify spaces that are visible to those who look at your house from the streets. This could include your front door or the patio. Placing flower pots and plant boxes in the front of your house gives you the freedom to change your plants and flowers according to the season and your preferred colors.
7. Hang Charming Garlands
Who doesn’t love hanging garlands around the house during the holiday season right? Similarly, green plant or flower garlands can be a complete game-changer if you hang them around the inner roof edge and along the sides of your porch all throughout the year.
This helps in establishing harmony between the structural aspects of your house and your house landscaping. These charming garlands make the transition from your front yard to the interiors of your house super smooth.
8. Attracting Birds
If you have a green front yard, you can certainly assume that several birds will be visiting it, especially if you plant many trees. You can install bird feeders on the lower branches of your trees or on the inner roof edge of your porch to attract birds. If you have trees in your yard, you could also install a birdhouse. This could give you a chance to practice your carpentry skills. If that’s something you aren’t good at, you can always buy a birdhouse and bird feeders from your local stores.
Even if the birds don’t seem to be interested in the bird feeder or the birdhouse, they will still end up coming to your yard if you install a birdbath. Birdbaths are a great way to add a water feature to your yard without the burden of installing and maintaining new water connections. You can find a lightweight rustic-looking birdbath for merely $40 and get it installed quickly. If you love watching birds, doing all of this will certainly bring you a lot of happiness.
9. Light It Up
The type of lighting you install in your house determines the entire vibe inside your house. Similarly, you can never go wrong with using lighting to give your front yard a quick glow up and improve your curb appeal. You will be happy to know that landscaping lights are extremely cheap, you can actually get them for as cheap as $20. All you have to do is purchase these lights and stick them in the ground around your yard.
Remember that you don’t have to go for simple white or yellow lights. Choose the colored lighting of your preference and border your flower beds and walkways with it. Landscaping lighting is often solar powered which means that you don’t have to worry about installing wirings and new light connections.
Pathway lighting certainly offers you a lot of benefits apart from offering better definition to your yard. Once you add some basic lighting to the yard, you can always choose to up your game by adding other exterior lighting elements like lanterns, lamps, uplighting, etc.
10. Hiding The Unattractive Elements
Walk around your front yard and take note of anything that might detract from the overall beauty of your front yard (trash bins or AC units). Moving them might not be an option as it may cause you a lot of inconveniences. In this case, you can always get your creative juices flowing and hide them using some DIY skills. What’s the easiest way of hiding them? Make a customized wooden cover that will be able to hide the unattractive feature from your sight.
FAQs
What Are The Best Plants For The Front Of The House?
Consider purchasing the following plants to enhance the beauty of your house’s front yard.
- Rose
- Hydrangea
- Azalea
- Chardonnay pearls
- Boxwood shrubs
What Shrubs Look Good All-year-round?
You can consider the following shrubs that will add a blast of color to your landscape and look good throughout the entire year.
- Lilac
- Forsythia
- Azaleas
- Mountain laurel
- English lavender
Final Thoughts
Now that we have given you the simplest of DIY ideas for your front yard landscaping, it’s your turn to make things happen for yourself. Read through all the ideas carefully, choose one or a combination of several ideas that match your skill level. Plan it all out carefully, pick up your tools and get to work! We are sure that if you choose the right idea and put in your time and effort, you will be able to landscape your front yard and make it beautiful in no time.
Also See: List of Best Apartment Moving Companies | Preparing For A Home Inspection? | Home Improvement Tips
