Monday 22 June 2015

Small Front Yard Landscaping Ideas



Turn your small front yard into a big asset with easy landscaping ideas.

Make it personal. Remember, your front yard is your calling card to the neighborhood. Not only is it the space that makes a first impression to your neighbors, but also it’s the place to express your taste and personality. When choosing complementary plants and designs, keep the architectural style of your home in mind so that your small front yard represent the spirit of its traditional or contemporary style.

Size it right. Small front yard landscapes are all about proportion. Think of your small front yard as the collar and your home as the shirt. If plants or trees are too tall, they can overwhelm the front of your home. The landscape and hardscape should match the scale of the house – and complement its façade. Ornamental trees such as cypress can be used to "mask" or hide parts of the front of your home you want hidden or create a privacy wall. Cutting a large tree from the front of your yard might diminish shade but also reveal and enhance your home’s character and style.

Go bold. When it comes to flowering plants, there’s no limit to the amount of color you can use in your front yard. If you have a center walkway that leads to your front door, line the sides of the path with bright orange anemones or periwinkle blue bell flowers. Instead of planting hedges next to the house, a stand of Black-Eyed Susans makes a vibrant statement.

Grassy is not always classy. Small front yards can have beautiful, well-trimmed lawns if they’re maintained properly. Yet, don’t feel like you must have grass in your small front yard. An unkempt front yard with a lawn that is poorly cared for can quickly become an ugly sight to you and your neighbors. If you’re considering exchanging your lawn for a stone courtyard or wide walkway, fill borders and remaining areas with mulched beds of your favorite annuals such as snapdragons or African daisies. Pea gravel or pebbles make an easy ground cover for tiny front yards. Line the ground with a weed-resistant mesh before applying the gravel, and remember to treat moss growth and mildew promptly. 

As with the design of any landscape, the questions you must ask yourself about small front yards are these: How much work am I willing to put into the initial design and planting phase of this small front yard landscaping project, and how much time am I willing to spend on its maintenance after it’s installed?  Knowing the answers will help you narrow down your choices and design a smart small front yard! 

Contact
Ayres Landscape Services, Inc.
www.ayreslandscapesvcs.com        
P.O. Box 1035


Chino, CA. 91708
Ph: 909-464-2535

Monday 8 June 2015

New Ways to Landscape Your Yard

Garden Courtyard
Framed by wisteria, a Grecian- style planter holds a tangle of geraniums and sweet-potato vines outside of this Rhode Island home.

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Geometric Garden
Twenty varieties of Hosta create a lush patchwork in front of this New Hampshire barn.
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Make an Entrance
An alee of fast-growing Bradford pear trees leads to this 1850s farmhouse.
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Mixed Greenery
Rounded and sword-shaped foliage populate this Pennsylvania garden, adding interest to the front-yard border even when little is blooming. “The iris leaves act like exclamation points,” the owner says.
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Floral Front Yard
Overflowing with your favorite flowers, window boxes are a irresistible draw for the eye. Consider planting flowers in a shade that complements the color of your home. Or, for dramatic effect, mix in a second plant that picks up your trim color.
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Elegant Archway
An archway covered in porcelain berry vines separates beds of black-eyed Susan, bee balm, and cat mint from this New York garden estate. The white, ruin-like columns in the distance were salvaged from a local bank.
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Resting Place
Portulaca, variegated sage, cherry tomatoes, Padron peppers, parsley, and more thrive in galvanized troughs in the backyard of this California home.
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Pretty Path
‘Tardiva’ and ‘Annabelle’ hydrangeas, ‘Diana’ Rose of Sharon hibiscus, and Hosta plantaginea line the walkway behind this Martha’s Vineyard home.
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Sweeping Views
‘Karley Rose’ grass highlights a view of the pool and vineyard in the backyard of this California home.
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Into the Woods
A limestone path, lined with wild daisies, leads to this Kentucky cabin.
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Plant Coral Honeysuckle
Throughout this perennial’s long bloom time, from mid-June through September, its trumpet-shaped blossoms can perfume your entire garden. Coral honeysuckle will twine around anything in its path, scaling a 10- to 15-foot trellis in a single season, and attract hummingbirds as well.
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A Quiet Corner
Clematis and confederate jasmine climb a brick wall adjoining this Alabama house’s back patio.
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Backyard Walkway
The owner of this California home renovated her gardens with help from Oakland landscape designer Tod Rimrodt, who cleaned up the overgrown perennial beds and refreshed gravel paths that connect the landscape’s many nooks and crannies.
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Covered Addition
Oak-leaf hydrangeas and lady’s mantle bloom in front of the sugar shack in the backyard of this Ohio farmhouse, while wisteria vines punctuate the building’s reclaimed windows.
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Going on Green
‘Blushing Bride’ hydrangeas and ‘Morning Light’ ornamental grasses soften the path to the guesthouse in the backyard of this California farmhouse.
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An Elegant Entrance
Very vigorous clematis, Sweet autumn clematis (Clematis tern flora) doesn’t just grow tall (up to 30 feet in a few months); it also grows wide, ensuring full coverage. Consider its tiny white flowers, which bloom in late summer and early fall, a bonus. Oh, and did we mention that the plant tolerates most soil and sun conditions?54eb6696a8f03_-_fast-climbing-vines-archway-0413-xln 16

Smell the Roses
This homeowner of this Birmingham home covered an arbor in ‘New Dawn’ roses. The walls of the home are covered in jasmine, clematis, and ivy.
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The View From Inside
To maximize the scene from their upstairs windows, which overlooks this arbor, the homeowners of this Hudson, New York, home planted a trumpet vine at each of the structure’s six posts.
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Garden Arbor
The homeowner of this Connecticut cottage built a fence close to the pool for intimacy, added evergreens for year-round structure, and varied the garden palette with complementary colors.
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A Green Entrance
Instead of a lawn, the homeowner of this Canadian cottage filled his front yard with a variety of plants. A gently winding gravel footpath leads visitors through the garden to the door of a whimsical—and practical—straw bale home.
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Stone Walkway
This 19th-century Italianate villa features a generous helping of lighthearted touches in the garden, like this walkway, to soften the stern edges and loosen up any lingering pomp. The homeowner planted alliums for its simple geometry.
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Room with a View
In the garden of this Philadelphia home, the outdoor “room with a view” is canopied by a trumpet vine, golden hops, and rose-bowered pergola, with concrete pavers laid down checkerboard style.
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Pedestrian Plants
In this Rhode Island garden, a variety called ‘Green Sheen’ surrounds the path to an office. A no-maintenance, evergreen ground cover that shines year-round and complements the sage woodwork of the 18th-century fanlight and door.
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Garden Path
Lush ornamentals and edibles were planted between the straight lines of paths in this Ohio garden, which artfully bind yard to house. Clipped boxwood and arborvitae, and a century-old stone lion, carved by an Ohio folk artist, define open-air rooms. White phlox and daisies bloom by the picket-fenced vegetable patch.
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Geometric Garden
Flowers are sprinkled throughout this Connecticut garden, from the bold prelude—a moody row of rose and clematis arbors—to herb beds anchored in ‘Fairy’ rose standards rising above fragrant heliotrope. The homeowner also devoted ample space for purple basil beside sweet, jalapeno, and paprika peppers.
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Secret Garden
With a structure to grow on, plants in this New York garden can create living walls that offer privacy and seclusion. Here, a cedar arbor boasts a dense covering of roses that forms a natural “roof,” while a boxwood shrub anchors the base of each column. The result is an intimate seating area that can be used for relaxing or dining.
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A Painterly Path
The passageway in this garden looks straight out of a storybook—and re-creating it requires almost no effort. In fact, the first step is simply letting an area grow wild. (If your plots bear, ryegrass seed will take care of the problem, fast.) Once the grass reaches great heights, plow a trail through it with a riding mower or weed wacker. From then on, a push mower can keep up appearances. And don’t worry about weed control or water; perfection’s not the point.54eb5eda74ff8_-_grass-pathway-gardening-idea-notebook-0712-xln 27

Think Outside the Boxwood
Instead of the usual prim suspects—boxwood, privet, holly—the designer of this Rhode Island garden composed the hedge with tall, breezy grasses. A seven-foot-tall maiden grass, along with several smaller stands of dwarf fountain grass, creates a sense of enclosure that has a fluid, almost musical effect.
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For More Information :
www.ayreslandscapesvcs.com
Ayres Landscape Services, Inc.
P.O. Box 1035
Chino, CA. 91708
Ph: 909-464-2535
Fax: 909-464-2537