Small Front Yard Landscaping Ideas

Posted August 27, 2015

This St. Augustine home owner wanted some small front yard landscaping ideas and swimming pool landscaping incorporated into her backyard landscape design.

Colby’s St. Augustine landscape was plagued by multiple issues in both the front and backyard.  The front yard was cluttered with an over grown hedge which blocked the front porch, untrimmed palm trees and dead plants.  The previous homeowner used retaining wall block as a landscape boarder around the trees and planting beds in the front yard landscape design.  The hardscape boarder was uneven, sinking and dysfunctional.  The St. Augustine sod was dying on the side and backyard do to over watering by multiple sprinkler heads watering the same areas.  In the backyard, around the pool deck perimeter, were areas of washout exposing concrete and irrigation pipes.  There was very little plant material other than the queen palms which were placed on the corners of the lanai.

After an initial consultation, we made plans and incorporated small front yard landscaping ideas which included removal of the large canary island date palm and all of the plants and hedge in front of the house.  As part of the small front yard landscaping design flowers were used instead of hedging plants, center piece evergreen trees were added and we shrank the size of the flower beds.  This new garden design requires less maintenance and trimming.  We installed new St. Augustine sod grass and trimmed the sylvestris palm.  In the backyard landscape design we used all of the retaining wall block removed from the front yard and built a retaining wall creating an elevated planting bed. This also prevents further erosion around the pool deck.  The swimming pool landscaping was filled with colorful tropical foliage and year around blooming interest.

Colby’s ideas for her home expanded beyond the small front yard landscaping ideas and she decided to paint her home  a different color. She went from a terracotta brown to a bright sunny yellow with white trim and black accents. Being from Philadelphia she had visions of her new home being a reflection of our laid back beachy lifestyle.  With this new information via her father-in-law, I decided to change the plant and mulch selection to reflect the changes she made on the exterior.  She couldn’t have been more pleased with the finished product and loved the colorful tropical foliage and blooms we added to her new small front yard landscaping design.