By Dave and Mary
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Use Our 10 Easy Landscaping Ideas

For Your Front Porch And Yard

Mary and I have collected 10 easy landscaping ideas from our travels photographing front porches across the U.S. to share with you. Most importantly, they are fun to do and will help you create lots of curb appeal for your front porch and home.

They are ideal for both large and small porches. In fact, many of our ideas can have a dramatic affect in creating extra charm and appeal on small porches or porticos.

No matter the size of your front porch, the right landscaping adds intrinsic value to any home.

beautiful landscaping and walkway to front porch
Beautiful landscaping adds lots of charm



10 Easy Landscaping Ideas

Although a few may take a little time to do, and others may take time to see the final results (plant growth time), our 10 easy landscaping ideas are sure to give your front yard and porch a nice new look.


1. Use Large Planting Containers

Use large planting containers on your front porch with bold and colorful plants to make a huge impression. An added bonus is that large containers retain more water than smaller ones - meaning less work.

These are perfect for those who want lovely looking plants but find it difficult to maintain them if away from home for extended periods. You can find a wide array of styles at Amazon.com . (referral link)>


2. Variety Is the Spice of Life

Create curb appealing and eye-catching landscape displays near your front porch by using plants with differing shapes, colors, and textures, and even leaf patterns.

Continue your pattern onto other areas of your front yard for continuity.


typical planting area in front of house
Before: Typical planting bed



curb appealing hardscape planting area near front porch
After: Transformed into a curb appealing array of color



3. Plant Low-Maintenance Plants

Minimize your work by planting low maintenance foliage. By using a combination of grasses and herbs, you cut down on watering and you'll only need to do a little periodic pruning.


curb appealing hardscape planting area near front porch
Low maintenance mixed perennials and grasses

4. Extend Your Small Porch

Use a combination of plants and pavers to extend the look of a small porch or portico. Small entrances can be visually enlarged by creating a patio area either in front of or beside the front door.

Add either in-ground plants or a combination of large and small planting containers to finish the look.


patio extension landscaped with awning
Landscaped patio extension off main porch
See more patio-porch ideas.


5. Help for Small Yards

Have a very small front yard? Expand your planting bed leaving only a short expanse of grass creating a more colorful and curb appealing array of foliage.


small landscaped yard with foliage and hardscape
Nice use of both colorful foliage and hardscape



6. Integrate Your Walk ways

Expand or integrate your planting borders to create a walkway to the front porch. If feasible, include aromatic plants so your visitors can enjoy the journey from the street to your home.

This also works well for establishing walk ways to the sides of your home.


nicely landscaped walkway leading to front porch
Walkway appears as part of the landscape design
This also works well for establishing walk ways to the sides of your home.


stone pavers lead way around front of house
Stone path around front of house to side


7. Integrate Artwork

Integrate artwork, like sculptures or statues, into your landscaping to create a focal point and add lots of interest.

This is a really easy landscaping idea because you can use items from around your home with which to decorate.


artistic statue in amongst landscape in front of porch
Artistic statue integrated into landscape



8. Plants for Slopes

Consider using low maintenance and easy growing foliage for slopes near your porch. Evergreens, ferns, and grasses make it easy to maintain and create a beauty all their own.


picket fence with beautiful flowers next to front porch
Evergreens planted on sloping ground



9. Picket Fence Fancy

One of our favorite easy landscaping ideas - we like picket fences. Use a backdrop like a partial picket fence with which to plant against.

This works well at the corners of your yard or at the ends of your porch or home. You need not have to install a lot of picket fence.

Quite the contrary, you only need about 8-10 feet.


picket fence with beautiful daisies next to front porch
Curb appealing picket fence



10. Walkway Designs

Sidewalks have appeal especially if they warrant a second look. Avoid making them straight; a curved sidewalk has an appeal all on its own.

Use pavers, brick, flagstone, or a combination of materials to make it interesting. They also give you more areas beside which you can decorate with foliage.


curved brick walkway leading to front porch
Nicely curved walkways add interest to any yard



A Few More Easy Landscaping Ideas

beautiful white home with showy hydrangeas
These showy hydrangeas are spectacular
Yes, without spending a lot, you can upgrade / freshen your landscaping with these easily doable ideas.
  • Edge your lawn and areas in your yard to define them. This may seem simple but it adds an instant polished look to your yard. You can edge with bricks, metal or stones that complement your home.
  • Take time to prune shrubs, trees and any plants that benefit from cutting back. Be sure to read up on your specific plants first, but what a lift you can give your landscaping's appearance if you trim back before things become overgrown.
  • Mulching! Mulching not only helps to keep weeds down but it also helps the soil retain moisture. Plus, we love the color that mulch adds to the landscaping; it gives "new life" to your landscape.
  • Include some showy plants! Like the gorgeous hydrangeas in the photo above, include some showy plants in your landscaping. Some other ideas include lavender, cone flowers, black-eyed susans, rose of sharon and bee balm. Make sure what you choose will do well in your climate, soil conditions and light exposure.
  • Rake your yard. One of the easiest ways to spruce up your lawn is to rake it. Perhaps you can use the bag on your mower. It's an instant way to tidy up your lawn and reclaim its neat appearance.



Easy Landscaping Ideas to Refresh a Porch Garden

our spring landscaping
Several of our well-established shrubs were killed by a winter freeze
Like many homeowners, maintaining your front porch and front porch landscaping is an ongoing task. Our landscaping was battered during a bitter cold winter front, unfortunately killing several of our shrubs, including a 10-year-old holly.

Along with that, later this year we will replace our front porch brick steps with stamped concrete steps and landing.

With these two issues in mind, our weather-related battered shrubs and our porch steps project for later in the year, we wanted to revitalize our front porch landscaping in the meanwhile. We didn't want to invest greatly, especially where in the area of our porch steps, so we we decided to add some budget-friendly, colorful annuals and perennials to give it a lift.


new barberries planted
Moving plants around is one way to refresh your landscape
One creative way you can refresh your landscaping is to move plants around. Meaning plants you already have.

To that end, we removed the three dead shrubs and replaced them with three barberries that were already in our landscaping. If you do this, be sure to read about when it's a good time to transplant for your particular species. There's always a risk of losing a plant due to the shock of being moved.

Our barberries were somewhat affected by the cold front, but they appear as if they will survive well. And surprisingly, when we moved them, we were delighted how much more interesting they look in their new locations. Their reddish color among our existing boxwoods adds contrast and additional color.


our holly was hit by the freeze and we need to remove it from our garden
Even our ten-year-old holly didn't make it
Surely, we thought, a ten-year-old holly would survive the freeze we had. Unfortunately, it did not. Not a sign of life in it.

So with quite a bit of effort, we removed the holly at the corner of our porch. Sad though. One year we had cedar waxwings enjoy the berries from our holly.


planting viburnum in porch garden
Planting viburnum where our holly used to be
In the open space where the holly used to be, Dave planted purple viburnum (fifty cents each), pink and purple moss phlox, and two perennial pink hollyhocks. He also planted some vibrant yellow marigolds to help ward off our resident deer. Only time will tell.


our spring landscaping
Our spring landscaping refresh
Because we plan to replace our brick steps and landing later this year, we chose to plant annuals in the area where the new landing will be constructed and where the barberries were previously located. This provided a spacious area from which we hope to have a very colorful array of summer plants.


begonias and marigolds
Marigolds and wax begonias will add some sparkle to our garden this year
We chose bright yellow marigolds and wax begonias which we found at Lowe's for fifty cents each (a flat of eight plants for $3.98) We call that a bargain in today's world.


our spring landscaping
We look forward to seeing our new annuals grow and bloom
And, speaking of deer, we live next to a woods and have plenty of deer friends visit periodically. We make our own deer spray using mixture of milk, water, eggs, garlic powder, and pepper. We find we need to be consistent about spraying, but we hope this helps greatly to keep our plants from being eaten.




Mary and I hope you enjoyed these easy landscaping ideas. Here's one more idea. A bonus from us...


Bonus Idea: Coordinate the Colors of Your Landscaping with Your Home

the color of flowers complements the colors in our home


Coordinate the colors of your flowers to coordinate with the colors of your home.

Our home has blue shutters and a blue front door. These flowers "pop" against the colors of our home.


collage of summer flowers around our front porch

A collage of the flowers planted around our front porch; they all complement our home nicely.

Just as the sky reflects the ocean, so should your landscaping reflect the colors and style of your home.




Mary and Dave, Founders of Front Porch Ideas and More
Hi! We're Mary and Dave, lifelong DIYers, high school sweethearts, and we both love porches. You've come to the right place for thousands of porch ideas.

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Mary and Dave, Founders of Front Porch Ideas and More
Hi! We're Mary and Dave, lifelong DIYers, high school sweethearts, and we both love porches. You've come to the right place for thousands of porch ideas.
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The Porch Store

Use the PCA Visualizer to design your screen door

Shop for Porch Parts at Vintage Woodworks.

--- End Sponsors ---
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At no extra cost to you, we earn a commission by referring you to some products on merchant sites. See our disclosure policy.
We, Front Porch Ideas and More, confirm, as stated on our privacy policy, that we do not sell personal information.

All content here is solely for presenting ideas. We recommend consulting with a licensed, experienced contractor before you begin your project.
We make no guarantees of accuracy or completeness of information on our site or any links to other websites contained here.


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