Home Outdoors Garden
Elizabeth MannehUpdated: Jul. 21, 2023
Are you looking for front yard flower bed ideas? Then look no further! These 10 top ideas will give your home instant curb appeal.
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English Country Garden
What could be more breathtaking for flower bed ideas front yard than a quintessentially English country garden? Use traditional cottage garden plants like speedwell (Veronica), catmint and forget-me-nots. And be sure to include some classic English roses, too.
Place taller plants at the back, with lower growing species in the front, and you’ll have the perfect front yard garden bed against a picket fence.
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Pots & Planters
If your front yard garden space is limited, then pots and planters are a great way to display your annual and perennial flower to the world. Pots and planters are easy to maintain, although of course, they do need regular watering. Help water retention by using good quality compost and water retaining crystals, or go the whole way with self-watering planters.
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Superb Shrubs
If you’re looking for low maintenance flower bed ideas for front yard, then shrubs can be a fabulous choice. There’s a mind-blowing range of shrubs to choose from, including many evergreen varieties for year-round interest.
Many shrubs also have flowers, so choose a range of shrubs to provide a display all year, such as witch-hazel, dogwood and cotinus (smoke tree) for winter interest, and camellias, azaleas and rhododendrons for spring. If you want low-maintenance front yard flower beds with blooms, you can always underplant the shrubs with spring bulbs or summer annuals.
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Eye-Catching Flower Wall
For immediate eye-catching impact, a stunning flower wall is hard to beat. One of the simplest ways to add curb appeal to your home, a flower wall can hang on an exterior wall or a front fence with equal effect.
Hanging varieties of plants are the best choices for a flower wall, such as lobelia, trailing fuchsia, bacopa or nasturtium, because the trailing plants will mask any supports, like a trellis or post. Alternatively, make a feature of the planters and use succulents for textured interest.
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Raised, Tiered Beds
Raised, tiered flower beds are one of the best flower bed ideas for the front yard. They’re space-saving, provide an interesting focal point and are easy to maintain. Wooden raised beds can be tiered, making them easier to reach for gardeners with mobility issues. Almost any style of planting looks good in raised beds, from formal bulb flower beds, to shrubs and specimen trees, to summer annuals. Plants can stand to attention to emphasize height or tumble over the edges for a softer look.
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Drought-Tolerant Plants
If your house front basks in the full sun, you’ll want to choose a front yard flower bed idea using drought-tolerant plants. By choosing your varieties carefully, you can still have superb front yard flower beds. Taller plants, like pampas grass, bird of paradise flowers (strelitzia), aloes and euphorbias, can provide color, texture and structure, while lower-growing alpines and succulents can fill in the gaps with some striking pops of color when they come into flower.
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Cool Contemporary with a Splash of Color
Sometimes less is more, and simple flower bed ideas for front yard can work especially well for contemporary styling. Often these planting schemes are more about interesting structure than about a riot of color, so keep the palette limited, such as using evergreen shrubs with one eye-catching injection of color. Close-cut hedging, such as a trimmed boxwood hedge, teamed with imposing yuccas and garden palms, give the flower bed structural interest, while colorful shrubs like cordyline and pieris add a splash of vibrancy.
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Raised Stone Beds
For a truly beautiful backdrop to a manicured lawn, natural or manufactured stone raised flower beds are hard to beat. As well as the beauty of the stone, you can also create undulating lines to edge your front yard flower beds. Again, dense hedging can be used for background structure, while flowering shrubs and roses can bloom happily in front.
At the front, a carpet of spring-flowering bulbs can give way to colorful summer bedding so your flower beds always look superb.
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Hanging Baskets
Another great option for your front yard flower ideas is to use hanging baskets. Whether you opt for impact with multiple hanging planters, or making a bold statement with a couple of outstanding focal hanging baskets, the possibilities are endless.
There are dozens of gorgeous trailing plants to choose from. Mix and match for variety, choose one plant for a harmonious look, or go completely unconventional with trailing tomatoes. If you have space, then why not mirror your hanging basket plantings with a few ground planters and pots as well?
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Unique and Unusual Planters
And last but not least, to give some unique ambiance to your front yard flowers, consider a planting idea that’s a bit wild and wacky. A vintage bicycle hung with flower planters, is a great way to attract the right sort of attention, while a planted wheelbarrow, rowboat or baby’s pram will also add some unusual curb appeal. A wheelbarrow can also make a fantastic planter, and could even be moved around from spot to spot. A row of boots full of trailing succulents will raise a smile, as will a fence hung with old blue jeans planted up with flowers.
Originally Published: May 28, 2019
Elizabeth Manneh
Elizabeth is an experienced freelance writer, specializing mainly in digital health & transformation, health & wellness, and education & learning. She's been published on ReadersDigest.com, Paysa.com, The Family Handyman, Huffington Post, Thrive Global, and The Good Men Project. She was also a regular contributor to Love Live Health and Daily Home Remedy. Elizabeth is a retired primary school principal and education consultant, with a continuing passion for education and learning.
