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Discover how to
Find your comfort level and gain confidence in your gardening abilities.
Choose the style of your front garden to reflect your personality and home.
Create edges with walls, fences and gates.
Transform the strip between sidewalk and street.
Design sitting areas that are open and inviting or cozy and intimate.
Determine the right types of plants and trees for your area by using regional growing guides provided.
About the Author Gordon Hayward is a certified member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. He is the author of several books, including The Intimate Garden: Twenty Years and Four Seasons in Our Garden, Garden Paths: Inspiring Designs and Practical Projects, and Your House, Your Garden: A Foolproof Approach to Garden Design, as well as a variety of articles for Horticulture Magazine. He lives in Westminster West, Vermont.
Creating harmony between your front garden and the front of your house is simply a matter of looking both outward and inward. To create that harmony, reacquaint yourself with the nature of your house, and then take a look inside both your house and yourself to see what you are made of.
Start with the house. That's easier than self-reflection. Go outside and stand on the road, street or sidewalk and take a close look at the front of your house. Is it one, two or three stories high? When was it built? Does it have a certain style? Colonial? Victorian? Cottage? Arts and crafts? Is it a classic suburban home with white clapboards or a ranch house? What materials were used in its construction? Brick? Stucco? Stone? Cedar? What, if any, paint colors were used? What color did you paint the house and is that color different from the trim? What color is the front door? Is it like most houses on your street or road, or does it have a distinctive style? Also look at existing features in the landscape-those elements that you cannot or are unwilling to change: major trees, close proximity to the sidewalk or street, a garage or outbuildings.
Answers to these and other questions about your house help you choose a style for the garden in front of it. A cottagey house gives rise to a cottage garden. A distinctively painted house gives rise to a very colorful (or subdued) garden. A long, low house suggests a long, low garden. A rustic house in a rural area gives rise to a relaxed garden style.
Introduction
1. The Style of Your Front Garden
2. The Driveway, Cars and Front Garden
3. Walkways to the Front Door
4. Gardens around the Front door
5. A Lot of Lawn, A Little Lawn?
6. Gardens Out to the Sidewalk or Street
7. Creating Edges: Walls, Fences and Gates
8. Sitting Areas
9. The Strip between Sidewalk and Street
10. The Whole Front Garden-Putting it All Together
Afterword
Resources
Overview
Renowned garden expert and designer Gordon Hayward shares his step-by-step process of creating entry gardens that invite, enrich and enliven. The new American garden is presented within a variety of delightful, inspiring photographs and illustrations that show fundamental design principles to put to work in your own garden, no matter where it is in North America, no matter what size it is. Even the smallest patch of lawn can be transformed into a beautiful, stylish space. The Welcoming Garden provides...