Just Show me Pictures!
Landscaping Your Front Yard
Unless you hire me and send me pictures to work with (contact me) , I can’t give you specific advice on designing a great landscape. But I can give you the questions I’d ask so you can think about the answers, which will certainly help you if you’re going to work up your own design. Later I’ll post some different questions for side yards and backyards.
One of the questions I’m asked most often is how to design the front yard to look good without being like every other front yard on the street, since many neighborhoods contain similar houses and landscaping. To find your individual style for your yard, start with your favorite room in your house, and answer the following questions:
Do you have more straight lines ....or curves?
Are there lots of little objects on most surfaces…or mostly larger pieces?
Are the colors hot and bright, cool and watery, airy and pastel, or dark and rich?
Are there a lot of contrasting colors, or are most of the colors in the same family?
Do you have a lamp and a table near most seating?
Are there places to put your feet up?
Do you have more art? Or more crafts decorating the room?
Does the character of the room seem masculine or feminine or androgynous?
Is the room arrangement primarily to please the user…or to please the eye?
Is your favorite space private and secluded.....or open and welcoming?
Now think specifically about how you use the front yard.
What is in your line of sight as you turn into the drive? This area should contain some large scale landscaping that draws the eye and gives you pleasure….Welcome Home!
What path do you take to the mailbox? This path should have smaller landscaping that is best appreciated by someone on foot. Of course it should be a pleasant surface to walk upon.
Is there foot traffic by your house…or just vehicles? If there is foot traffic, is it mostly neighbors you would enjoy greeting, or people you don’t want to be bothered by?
Do you need your landscaping to help reduce street noises or screen the windows?
Do you have cause to be careful about providing easy hiding places for potential criminals? Do you want your property to remain brightly lit after dark? Do you want motion detectors?
Where do you want visitors to park? This area should seem open and accessible, with a clear path to the door you want visitors to use.
Where do you park when you don’t use the garage? You shouldn’t have to edge past your car to get to the sidewalk, and the area should be possible to easily keep clear of mud and snow.
What types of plants are possible? You can’t grow sun-loving plants in the shade of old trees, or bog plants in dry sand.
Are you looking at your yard as a source of productive exercise, or do you prefer to spend your yard time relaxing in a swing?
Many of these aren’t really either/or questions. After all, I love to plant and dig…but I also love to drift back and forth on the swing. I walk to the mailbox straight down a long drive, so I don’t have a path to landscape, but I can still put in small things along the way that remind me fondly that life isn’t about bills.
By the time you’ve really thought about the answers to these questions you may have a pretty good idea of where to put in some new landscaping, and what scale of material to use. It’s really good to draw out your plan ahead of time because it’s a lot easier to change it on the screen than in your yard after you’ve planted it and tended it and waited for it to grow.
The most useful thing I’ve found is to take lots of pictures and then look for the good and bad on your site. Start by becoming a millionaire in your mind and draw up the plan you’d like to have if time and money were no object. Accentuate the positive, minimize the negative, and remember that you can change anything.
Don’t forget to take into account what’s already there. Anything already growing well and too mature to move should only be taken out as a last resort. Try to incorporate these into your design unless you truly hate them. Well-grown trees are a national treasure and should only be taken down if they are diseased or threatening harm. They increase oxygen content, lower the ambient air temperature in the summer, buffer wind, and provide a home for wild creatures.
If there are any ‘habitat’ areas that you want to take out (such as water features or brushy areas) consider how you can make a new, similar habitat somewhere else so you don’t deprive birds and toads and others of their homes.
I hope this has been helpful to you, below are some ideas for using hostas in the landscape.
Hostas are a natural for under the shade of trees, below is a suggested design for an island bed under deciduous trees.
Shady
Island around three trees:
One of the most effective ways of using large hostas is to think of them as flowering shrubs, without any of the drawbacks. They can be used to make a striking backdrop or frame to your garden or property line. In summer they do a fine job of softening and adding interest in front of your evergreen shrubs. They never need pruning to stay in their place, yet they always maintain a graceful and pleasing shape. But their greatest asset as flowering shrubs may be that they can be cut down entirely in winter without any messy bare sticks to spoil the crisp lines of the evergreens.
The blues hold their color best when protected from the afternoon sun, so plant them on the north and east sides of trees or buildings. Many are very large and rugged, like Abiqua Drinking Gourd, and may stand alone as an interesting bush-type specimen if you wish. But surround it with a lacing of blue rug junipers and you have an arresting framework for a cool palette garden. Arranged with other distinctively shaped hostas, like Love Pat and Krossa Regal, it can be used to create a living sculpture.
A striking look around a Blue Spruce is to plant several Blue Angel in front to provide a graceful transition from the tall spire of the spruce to the flat green of the lawn. A neat blue-green edging of Baby Bunting would be the perfect frame for this orderly and harmonious garden.
Around
a Blue Spruce:
If you have any of the gold tipped evergreen shrubs in your yard, fronting them with a small golden hosta like Golden Scepter brings out their colors and provides an outstanding focal point in your garden. Any of the golden hostas are brightly viridescent in the shade, deeper gold in partial sun, and should be used to bring spotlights and focus to an area. All mix well with hot colors, and look good with the gold and green variegated hostas as companions. I particularly like the effects of the golds on Arborvitae, as their colors are very complementary.
In front
of the more traditional evergreens, I prefer to use primarily variegated
hostas, a sure way to break the monotony of the ubiquitous but oh-so-useful
yew. Because yews are dark and tend toward a blue green, I recommend hostas
like Guacamole, Minuteman
and Loyalist.
But in front of those difficult bronzy junipers, there's nothing like the
deep, dark green of Leta's
UltraViolet or the even tones and striking
looks of Komodo Dragon. 
Actually most hostas go
with everything. One of my favorite plantings included two arborvitaes
on each side of a purple leaf plum, with blue hostas to the left, and
daylilies to the right,(and a Krossa Regal arching up in the far right background) and a boulder behind a pool in the middle.
Any hosta's favorite place is probably close to a shady goldfish pond. The strong graceful foliage reaches out to cover and soften the edges, without drooping in the water.
If you're bored with your hedge, liven it up with a hosta planting in front. The changing aspects of Sagae and Bright Lights will give you something new to look forward to, and the bold complementary colors of Minuteman and Loyalist will give the illusion of movement. Loyalist, in particular, is very effective inter-planted with pastels against a dark background. Weave in Flash of Light with low perennials and watch them come alive in contrast.
A garden I want to visit will have Loyalist and Minuteman illustrating a famous battle in neat soldierly rows. Despite their revolutionary names, a Civil War battle seems most appropriate, as they are virtual mirror images of each other. They would be grand flowing together in the middle in a clashing conflict for ground. I wonder which would win? Knowing their habits, they'd probably coexist peacefully for years, neither crowding out the other. Hostas are like that.
All Hostas are great to interplant with spring bulbs too, as their generous foliage covers the fading leaves of the spring flowers.
If your lot is wooded, try naturalizing with Leta's UltraViolet, which will self-seed if it likes the area and create a river of green beneath the trees. Invincible is a good choice too, as it will spread by underground stollens, making it easy and economical to cover a shady wild area. The deer have left mine alone, but we have lots of other stuff for them to eat so maybe that's coincidence. And give some thought to the winter garden. Every island bed should have some of Leta's UltraViolet planted near the center. Bright, intense violet blooms are held high on slender stalks, and the highly decorative and long-lasting seed casings add elegant architecture to the winter landscape. If you 're creative, they work very well in wreaths and other seasonal decorations.
I wanted a woodland pool in
an area with three large trees, and I don't want to hurt their large roots
by digging a real pool. OK, I admit it. I also don't want to hurt my back
by digging a real pool, and I think this will produce a beautiful effect
for a fraction of the time and effort and money and maintenance. I'm using it as a protected area to test drive the new mini hostas I'm interested in. The winners will be offered for sale soon. BTW, for those of you who read about my faux-pool idea, this is proof of evolution. Now it's a mini hosta garden.
Click on the images below to see some other design ideas.
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Cider House Hostas is owned and operated by:
Loretta Pierfelice, 8489 Wesleyan Church Road, Pataskala, Ohio 43062, 614-496-3501
For email please replace the 'at' with @ in my email address: loretta'at'ciderhousehostas.com
Member of The Ohio Farm Bureau and of The Central Ohio Hosta Society
Last updated 5/8/2006.