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Front Yard Landscaping Ideas

Now that spring is in full swing everyone has landscaping on the brain here in Frisco, Texas. Whether or not you have a green thumb, we have some simple & budget friendly front yard landscaping ideas to help spruce up your front yard landscaping without breaking the bank.

Adding Annuals

Annuals are seasonal flowers that bloom for their lifespan. You can purchase your annuals in flats of between 12-20 or for specialty annuals, they can often come in 1g containers. To really give your front yard garden beds a pop of color, plant the annuals right at the front of the bed, around a tree ring area (if soil is available) or add them to tall and colorful pots placed strategically in the front yard. Depending on the annuals you have selected, they will last the season or for the next 2 seasons. If you have selected rabbit-loving annuals, consider using an organic rabbit deterrent such as Rabbit Scram. Check out our previous post best spring annuals for north DFW area if you need help selecting spring flowers.

Define Your Garden Bed

To give your garden beds more definition, consider purchasing edging or having a qualified landscaper install an edging to run the perimeter of your beds. Local home improvement stores will carry a variety of composite edging or metal edging. If you are using a reputable landscaping company, they will have access to longer lasting commercial-grade metal edging and even some that doesn’t rust. Either edging material will come with stakes to secure the edging into the ground. If doing the installation yourself, you will need to have simple tools like a hammer, level, shovel and a metal grinder or hack saw in order to custom cut the edging pieces.

Refresh Your Mulch

One of the most budget-friendly ways to liven up your existing landscaping will be to add a new layer of hardwood mulch. Mulch offers both utility and beauty to your garden bed. Having a layer of mulch installed on top of your soil line insulates your plants from the hot sun and winter cold, reduces water evaporation, offers better drainage for watering your plants and helps to control soil erosion. Don’t worry about cleaning out the old mulch, simply plan to add about 2 inches of new mulch material to the garden bed. On average, 10 bags of mulch (2 cubic ft bags) will cover 120 sq ft of garden bed space.

Add Rock to Your Garden Bed

Another way to add visual interest to your garden bed is to install colorful river rock. You can convert the entire garden bed area or simply plan to install a narrow strip of rock along the front of your bed. The cost of rock varies greatly depending on the size and shape. If you have a lot of low growing foliage on the plants in your garden bed, steer clear of the larger (3-4”) stones as they will absorb a lot of our hot summer sun and burn the tender foliage it comes in contact with.

Install Accent Boulders

Installing one or two large, accent boulders in your garden bed offers a very distinctive style to the overall design. Perhaps you have an irrigation valve box or pipe installed in your bed. Strategically placing a large boulder stone in front of or on top of (as long as the boulder isn’t too heavy) is a wonderful and easy way to hide these necessary utilities.

Landscape Lighting

Our final suggestion for a budget-friendly way to bring design and interest to your front yard landscaping would be to install landscape lighting. Landscape lighting brings attention to specimen or focal plants in addition to lighting areas like a front yard pathway. Landscape lighting installation can often be expensive, especially if you currently do not have access to electricity near your front yard landscaping. Great improvements have been made in the last decade with solar powered lighting and you can now find solar powered path and spot lights. Find a sunny spot and simply stick the solar-powered lights in the ground.

Bring your tired landscaping to life this year by installing some or all of the simple & budget friendly front yard landscaping ideas above. For pennies on the dollar and a little effort, you can have a front yard that will be the envy of your neighborhood.