If you love to have a beautiful front yard, then your landscaping bone is feeling itchy before the good weather even hits. You won’t hire landscape contractors this year, because you’ll pride yourself on how you got it done, and you got it done at a bargain. We can help a little, and you don’t have to tell a single soul. Put your gardening gloves on and prepare to be inspired by these cheap ways to landscape a front yard.
Minimize Lawn Care
A new trend in landscaping in recent years has been to minimize lawn care by minimizing the front lawn. There are some states that do not allow the removal of your front lawn, but you can minimize it to some extent with landscaping features that take up that square footage.
Using different elements to take up lawn space is one of the cheap ways to landscape a front yard, and eliminate some lawn maintenance hours at the same time. This is also considered a sustainable way to maintain your front yard. That is because you will reduce emissions for lawn maintenance, and have extra foliage or plant life in your lawn to feed the environment. If you already have a sprinkler system installation, keep your lawn where you have sprinklers in place. If you don’t, you have the freedom to remove as much lawn as you want.
Completely taking out your grass or lawn and using that space for other features is easier than you think. Plan before you remove the lawn, and know exactly what you are putting in. You can probably create an entire oasis in your front area with things in your garage that you won’t use for anything ever again.
Some of our other ideas such as stone walkways will help to take up this space, as well.
Rock On
Rocks and stones in front yards have been cheap ways to landscape a front yard for decades. You can create walkways, fairy rock gardens, or even a faux fire pit in your front yard.
You can buy stones and rocks from your local garden center, and they can be as low as one dollar. Large stones or rocks can be made into a walkway that leads up to your front door, or to a private nook elsewhere in the front. A walkway draws your eyes towards the object you want it to be drawn to. Try and keep the rocks or stones here uniform, and that will make it easier for your admirers to follow your little rock road to somewhere.
Where you have crevices or cracks in your walkway, fill that up with tiny stones or random pebbles. You may not even have to buy them. Get creative with a long walk on the beach and take home any stones or pebbles that you can find.
Rocks will help you to mix up the look of your front yard, especially if you have a lot of green and bright colors. A neutral palette through stones or rocks against the backdrop of the colors of your front lawn will give your front yard a low-maintenance and versatile appearance. There are creative ways to find rocks that will make this one of the cheap ways to landscape a front yard.
Perennial Prowess
Every gardener knows that perennials are among the most famous cheap ways to landscape a front yard. If you don’t have perennials already, bring some color into the front with flowers like tulips, hostas, daffodils, hydrangeas, daylily, daisy, butterfly bushes, and asters.
Do some research to determine the colors that you want in your yard and their seasons for bloom. Each perennial blooms at different times of the year, and so you will want to strategize what you want to plant and when.
With perennials, you also need to strategize which ones need sun, and which ones can handle or prefer shade. Hostas like the shade for example, while hydrangeas prefer some sunlight. For plants that like the sun, you want to give them a spot where they get at least 6 hours of sun a day, and that will be enough.
Make sure that the soil you are using for them has drainage. Do some research to determine what plants prefer more damp soil, and which ones do not. You will be able to tell by just testing the soil with your hands which sections of your flower beds have better drainage than others.
Remember that perennials are perennials because they are hearty and robust plants. They can handle a lot. They don’t fuss as much when you need to move them. These can be planted anytime from after the last frost until autumn. Plant them with a hole that is two times the width of the container they are in and about the same depth.
Mulch It Up
When you are looking for something to do with extra space in your front yard, mulch is a great way to save a lot of problems in maintenance and costs. Mulch is one of the many cheap ways to landscape a front yard. It offers you weed control and a neater appearance throughout the entire season.
Mulch will make the colors in your flower beds jump out. It will serve as a backdrop, even for your greenery. It also offers a texture that provides a cover for your flowers so that the weeds can’t creep out. With mulch, you will have a lot less weeding to do.
Mulch is not only one of the favored ways to landscape a front yard, but it also offers practical components for your garden. It can help to keep the moisture in and put nutrients back into the soil. Mulch helps them to grow, and also helps them to stand out the way you want them to.
Decorate With Flowers
When you want to landscape, it’s tempting to want to spend money on every decoration you see at the garden center. Instead, spend the money on plants to decorate. Use plants that you already have, or spend the money on perennials that you will always have. Using plants, greenery, and flowers as decorations is one of the cheap ways to landscape a front yard when you consider what you would spend on decorations.
If you have a mailbox in your front yard, plant flowers around it to give it a little more life. Make a garland out of green vines or flowers, and turn that into a bunting for your front porch. Add elements that would be normal life elements, but turn them into flower patches.
An old bike, for example, can be put in the garden and turned beautiful with some hanging perennials. An old bed frame from the garage can be installed outside and reworked with a mattress of flowers, instead of foam. Tell your friends about your new flower bed, and nobody will miss your home.
Another idea is to use an old ladder that you have that you are not using. Create a vertical garden by leaning it up against a tree or the side of your house and weave vines throughout it. An old wheelbarrow is another item you may have around that you do not use. You can get one at a garage sale as well. They make for wonderful flower pots if you want to add an item with flowers to decorate your front garden with.
Gardeners have been doing things like this for centuries. Use what you have and make it beautiful. As a gardener, you already have that gift.
Just Add Water… Features
A conversation about gardening ideas is not complete without some mention of water features. Many gardeners looking for cheap ways to landscape a front yard try not to think of water features, because they can get expensive. When you add in a pump and try to model the magazines, they’re going to be. They don’t have to be.
Just add something with water to your landscape, and you’ve got a water feature. Again, you can use something in the home or garage that you already have. You can also shop around at garage sales for items that match your colors and themes.
An old watering can be tilted and repurposed to create a water feature. Water pumps on their own can cost as low as $20. You can create something beautiful here with very little money.
Plant a Tree
Trees are a great way to accomplish a few things with your front garden. They can also be one of the cheap ways to landscape a front yard. Trees and saplings will take up some space in your front yard. If you are looking for an addition to your yard to take up space, so that you don’t have to spend money to fill up space, trees are a great way to do that.
You don’t need to be an arborist or call one to make some tree changes at your home. Do some research on tree care, and also on tree removal, before you implement some affordable saplings into your lawn. Saplings will grow into something amazing, and will even be able to save you on energy costs if you place them right. At the same time, if you think you may not be living at that home forever, learn how to care for trees when you want to remove them.
Raised Beds
Raised beds are a trend in gardening, but many people think that they are more suited to the backyard for vegetables or backyard blossoms. They can be some work, which makes many gardeners think they are not one of the cheap ways to landscape a front yard. They can be though.
Raised gardens can look just as beautiful out front as they can in the back. Do some research online and look at pictures of raised beds in the front to get some inspiration. They don’t have to be large raised beds. Some simple do-it-yourself-raised beds can be as low as $20 from the hardware store. You can also make one and prop it up on used cinder blocks if you have them, and grow flowers out of every crevice your raised bad offers now.
Lighting Upon Lighting
Garden lighting is not only fun, but it is one of the cheap ways to landscape a front yard for only a few dollars. Landscape lighting can be found anywhere from Amazon to your local dollar store. You can also use lighting that you already have, such as your holiday mini-lights that will work outdoors.
Lanterns are a very popular décor for gardens today. Stake lamps can be purchased for $10 and can be used to line the driveway. Motion sensor lamps or outdoor plug-ins may be just as affordable, and also offer security features outside. Lamps add an instant sense of elegance to any front yard, and can be done very affordably if you spend the time researching them.
Window Boxes and Hanging Pots
Window boxes and hanging plants are cheap ways to landscape a front yard and make your garden a little more three-dimensional. Window boxes don’t necessarily need a window, you can put them anywhere in the front where you need a little pop.
If your window boxes are looking a little tired, get creative with changing their look. Move them to a different location in your new front space. Paint them with waterproof paint and spruce them up to match the theme of your front yard.
Design Your New Space Today
When it comes to finding cheap ways to landscape a front yard, your only limit is your imagination. Although there are a lot of trends in landscaping today, you don’t have to stick with them.
Put whatever you want in your front yard. If you have an idea brewing, do some research on it and look at images online to see if you can find the inspiration you are looking for.
