The Front Yard: How Your House Can Give an Awesome First Impression

Your front yard is the first thing that anyone who visits your home will see, yet many homeowners fail to properly care for their yards. If having little time or money is your main impediment to maintaining a beautiful yard, consider the following tips for designing a lower-maintenance yard that, after initial implementation costs, may cost less to care for than a traditional lawn.

Xeriscape Your Yard

Xeriscaping is the use of ornaments, stones, gravel, and desert plants in place of traditional green grass in order to reduce a lawn’s water requirement. Native desert plants, such as yucca, prickly pair cactus, cholla, and agave are all popular choices that need minimal water. The desert willow tree, native to western Texas, needs slightly more water than cactus and yucca, but is drought-tolerant and thus a good choice for those who don’t want to give up trees entirely. It grows quickly and puts on hundreds of beautiful pink blossoms in just a few years.

Plant Low-maintenance Bushes

Some kinds of bushes will look nice if you don’t have time to prune them into perfect topiary designs. For example, purple sage bursts into attractive blossoms and looks appealing whether it’s been clipped or not.

Decorate with Quirky, Creative Lawn Ornaments

Garden gnomes are overdone. An old toilet with flowers growing out of the bowl is crass and tacky to some, but hilarious and creative to others. If quirky is your style, consider unusual repurposing of items you’d never expect to see on a lawn.

Put your Flowerbeds to Good Use

If your flowerbeds are covered in weeds or bare dirt because you don’t have time to take care of flowers, plant low-maintenance ground cover, such as the Purple Heart Plant(also called Wandering Jew). This striking purple-stemmed fast-growing plant sends out underground runners for quick cover and is drought-tolerant.

Get professional help with your trees

If you’ve been putting off dealing with dead tree stumps because you can’t take care of it yourself, contact a professional. Los Angeles Stump Removal can help you with the stumps and dead branches that are making your yard unattractive. With our quick, professional service at a great value, you’ll wish you had called us a long time ago.

If your yard is making your home look neglected, now’s the time to put a little work into it so you can enjoy living in a well-cared-for home. Having a beautiful front yard is the first step to making a great first impression.

Annette Hazard is a freelance writer that usually writes about home and health. She is a mother of one and enjoys gardening and the outdoors.

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4 Comments

  1. Getting a leaf mulcher is on hubby's top priorities list for when we finally get a home too Sean! Much easier to keep clean and dispose of!

  2. Some really great ideas here, there is so much you can do to make your lawn look amazing. Each summer we try to add something new. This year we got a leaf mulcher and it really helped give our yard that well manicured look we had been looking for. So much easier to keep it clean now

  3. I personally love a home with a gorgeous front yard. I've been known to seriously piss off a few people behind me by pulling off to the side of the road to stop and take a photo of an extremely beautiful home and yard to add to my "One Day" scrapbook LOL!

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