Gardening Your Front Yard: Projects and Ideas for Big and Small Spaces – Includes Vegetable Gardening, Pollinator Plants, Rain Gardens, and More!

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Learn how to treat your front yard like a backyard without sacrificing beauty, from choosing the right plants to building walkways and setting up a front yard patio.

In Gardening Your Front Yard, author Tara Nolan (Raised Bed Revolution) of SavvyGardening.com uses her unique combination of DIY/building savvy and gardening expertise to weave you past the main pitfalls you may encounter when trying to fit a garden or gardens between your home and the street.

This beautifully illustrated and comprehensive resource shows how to accomplish several hardscaping projects, such as laying a mowing border and building a walkway; provides inspiration to create a rain garden; and gives DIY instructions for making your own raised beds, a bench, a privacy screen, and more—all custom-designed for the rigors of front-yard gardening.

Gardening Your Front Yard is a gardening book in every sense of the word, however. Choosing the right plants is even more important when you are dealing with a small, highly visible area sometimes with less than ideal growing conditions. You will find advice on:

Planting around foundation wallsDealing with road saltPlanting boulevards/hell stripsShade gardensPrivacy screeningSecurity dos and don’tsHow to intermingle edibles and landscape plantsAnd much more
With the sage advice and step-by-step projects of this comprehensive guide, convert your front yard from a bland grasscape to a vital living space.

From the Publisher

Gardening Your Front Yard

The Front Yard Comes into Focus

There was a time when the sight of a few dandelions would have drawn scorn from neighbors (I’m sure it still does, for some) who worried the seeds would float onto their own perfect lawns. But we have come a long way these last few years, as more and more homeowners see the value of putting their front yard gardens to better use. We have moved away from plain green lawns sprayed to eradicate any sign of other life—like dandelions—not to mention beneficial insects, which are innocent bystanders. Walk down many urban or suburban streets these days and, chances are, you’ll see at least a small mix of homes that have gone the front yard garden route—with food, flowers, or a mix of both—peppered among the traditional green lawns—both weed filled and weed free.

Front Yard Living: A Return to Being Social in the Front Yard

At some point over the years, everyone retreated to their backyards. Don’t get me wrong: I love my backyard and the privacy it provides. I like the fact I can eat my breakfast on my deck in my pajamas and only the birds and squirrels can see me. But there is something really nice about getting to know the people who live on my street. A few of my neighbors can be found on their front porches on mild evenings. And when I’m out gardening, neighbors walking by will often stop to chat —or pull their cars over to say hello. Gardening may be solitary when you’re doing the work, but it’s inherently social if you encounter a fellow green thumb who is interested in what you are planting and doing.

Front Yard Flowers, Foliage, and Groundcover

My approach hasn’t become more complicated, but I like the word “mindful” to describe how I now choose many plants. Don’t get me wrong, I still choose plants based on looks—foliage, stunning blooms, texture, and more. But many of my choices are now based on various characteristics of the plants, such as drought tolerance and pest resistance. Getting back to the front yard itself, there are many possibilities, as our focus on the lawn diminishes in importance. On my own property, I grow salt-tolerant plants along the curb because my front garden gets its fair share of salt spray from winter plows. Many of these plants are also drought-tolerant bloomers that don’t mind the hot, dry days of summer without a deep drink (not to mention poor soil, which I’m consistently working to amend).

Growing Vegetables in Front Yards

Both urban and suburban properties can often present a challenge to green thumbs who are longing to grow edible plants. What to do if your backyard is in complete shadow? Perhaps there is a giant tree on the property, or in a neighbor’s backyard, casting shade. (Or, possibly reaching its tentacled network of roots throughout the yard, making planting in the ground nearby next to impossible.) Raised beds can solve that problem, but if you don’t have any light, it doesn’t matter. The vegetables need to be planted where the sunshine is.

Sustainable Front Yards

Sustainable gardening concepts and their coverage as topics in mainstream media have evolved exponentially over the last few years. Little by little, taking steps to be mindful of the environment when gardening is no longer an outrageous concept only the super environmentally conscious dare to implement. Everyone seems to want to do their part to help, whether it’s providing milkweed for monarch butterflies or installing a rain barrel. And every little project counts.

Front Yard Garden Embellishments

Creating a sustainable driveway, for example, is a giant project unto itself. Driveway materials aren’t replaced very often. It’s more of a one-time project you hope will last. And it can certainly be a long-term front yard goal that can be shelved until you’re ready to start researching what you’d like to replace the asphalt with. There are some great sustainable, more sustainable options now that homeowners are turning to for greener spaces. And many companies are upgrading their product lines accordingly to include such offerings, like permeable paving solutions for paths, patios, and driveways.

Front Yard Project

Vertical Privacy Plant Stand

This vertical plant stand uses strategically placed flowerpots to provide a bit of privacy from the street on a small front porch. It could be modified to fit other places, such as along a deck. Imagine a grouping of three along the side of a pergola. This project also presents a pretty vertical garden if there is not a lot of space in the front yard for a garden bed.

Rolling Versailles- Inspired Planter

I like the regal look of the Versailles planters you see when strolling the grounds of France’s most famous palace. The original was designed in 1670 by André Le Nôtre, King Louis XIV’s gardener. These portable containers were built for the orange trees that were imported to the castle, so it would be easy to move them into l’orangerie, the property’s greenhouse, for the winter. Though the main photo shows off a highbush blueberry, it turned into a summer home for my ‘Verte’ fig tree.

Mini Lettuce/ Herb Table for a Front Patio

There’s something fun and challenging about trying to squeeze as many herbs and veggies as possible into a small space. Pinterest can send you down a rabbit hole of fun and creative ideas. For this project, I decided to downsize my lettuce table design from Raised Bed Revolution to create a side table that would fit a selection of leafy greens (lettuces, spinach, pea shoots, baby kale, etc.), or perhaps a small selection of herbs.

Installing a Rain Barrel

You’ve brought your shiny new rain barrel home. Now what? The first thing you should do is make sure it has a level place to sit. This may be in your front or side yard or on your driveway. If the area is part of the garden, a square piece of flagstone makes a great base (use a stack if you’d like your rain barrel set higher for easier access). Just be sure to level it. There are also stands available, but be sure they can withstand the weight of your size of barrel (a full rain barrel weighs over 400 pounds [181 kg]). You also need to make sure the overflow water has an outlet directed away from the house. This can be done with a diverter.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cool Springs Press; Illustrated edition (March 10, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0760364869
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0760364864
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.12 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.9 x 0.85 x 10.4 inches