Maine Front Yard Blooms With Exuberant Color All Summer Long

Photos by Heidi Kirn

Yard at a Glance
Who lives here: This is the summer home of a California couple
Location: Kennebunkport, Maine
Size: One-half acre (one-third hectare)
Design-build landscape firm: Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes

Before: The house sat completely exposed to the street. The backyard already boasted beautiful gardens, so the team concentrated on the front yard and a path to the breezeway entrance on the historical home’s new wing.

Carter integrated several existing front yard trees, including two ‘Princeton’ American elms and a large Japanese maple, as well as an existing wood fence and granite steps at the front door.

After: Here’s an overhead view of the redesigned entry and courtyard garden. “The primary goal was to create privacy for the front yard,” Carter says. At the same time, the design aimed to frame beautiful views that could be enjoyed from inside the house, especially from the kitchen, which is behind the two windows on the right.

To screen street traffic without blocking natural light, Carter installed a mature hedge: hatfield yew (Taxus x media ‘Hatfieldii’, USDA zones 4 to 7; find your zone). Functioning as a living wall, it provides a deep green backdrop that makes the colorful blooms pop. To break up the hedge’s flat top, Carter bookended the hedge with two transplanted existing ‘Princeton’ American elms for vertical structure. Off the right side, he planted ‘Limelight’ panicle hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’; zones 3 to 9) to bring in chartreuse, one of the wife’s favorite colors.

Winding from the driveway to the breezeway entry on the left, a new bluestone path serves as another important design element. Along this experiential journey, the walkway guides visitors toward the front yard before turning them toward the courtyard garden leading to the breezeway entrance.

Find a landscape designer on Houzz

“The architecture of the house dictated the layout of the landscape,” Carter says. “It’s very symmetrical, so we played off that.” A central path of fine pea gravel complements the historical home and leads to the existing granite steps at the front door. Deep garden beds line the front of the house and the hedge, opening into the entry courtyard on the left and a shade garden on the right.

The designer emphasized verticality throughout the landscape. He planted upright European hornbeam trees (Carpinus betulus ‘Fastigiata’, zones 4 to 8) off all four corners of the house, framing the old structure with stately forms that echo the existing ‘Princeton’ elms.

10 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Front Yard Redesign

Two Emerald Spire crabapple trees (Malus x adstringens ‘Jefgreen’, zones 2 to 7) add verticality and dimension to the hedge, providing the garden’s earliest spring blooms beside a pair of granite posts. “These kinds of granite posts were used as hitching posts in the old days, and you still see some of those around town,” Carter says.

Here, the posts mark what the designer calls a peekaboo moment, where people strolling by can enjoy a view of the garden. To guide visitors toward the preferred breezeway entry, Carter placed a spherical sculpture to block the front steps.

Between the hedge and the house, Carter carved out a grassy allée. While a traditional allée typically is composed of trees lining a path, driveway or roadway, here the house and hedge create a similar intimate, sheltered effect.

The surrounding beds are filled with texture, with layered ferns, grasses, shrubs and perennials timed to bloom in succession all summer while the owners are here. “She loves texture, and she loves to have lots of color that unfolds,” Carter says of the wife. “She especially loves chartreuse, that we brought in through Hakone grass [Hakonechloa macra, zones 5 to 9], the ‘Limelight’ panicle hydrangeas and ‘Green Jewel’ coneflowers [Echinacea purpurea ‘Green Jewel’, zones 3 to 8]. Chartreuse adds so much vibrancy and freshness to the garden.”

Carter integrated into the design the existing hydrangeas that flank the front door of the historical architecture. Though not yet blooming in these photos, perennial hibiscus plants are stars in the garden beds. “They are so big and so vibrant. They have deep burgundy leaves and soft pale pink blooms that are the size of dinner plates,” Carter says. “They bloom a good five to six weeks during July and August, and they are such happy plants.”

Before and After: 3 Front Yards That Invite Socializing

“The homeowners love to entertain, and she likes to serve drinks and then walk her guests through the gardens to look at what’s blooming,” Carter says. These photos were taken one year after planting, during the peak July bloom. Toward the back of this photo, the red leaves of the existing Japanese maple mark a peaceful shade garden layered with hostas.

Plantings seen here include the feathery blooms of ‘Milk and Honey’ Chinese astilbe (Astilbe chinensis ‘Milk and Honey’, zones 4 to 9) and ‘Snowdrift’ astilbe (Astilbe x arendsii ‘Snowdrift’, zones 3 to 9). The blue-purple spiked flower clusters of ‘Junior Walker’ catmint (Nepeta x faassenii ‘Junior Walker’, zones 4 to 8) and the elegant fronds of ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris, zones 3 to 7) round out the space.

Before: The view across the front yard was nothing special.

After: The lush plantings make the grassy allée a wonderful place to stroll and admire the views.

Moving toward the driveway, part of the original wood fence now frames an entry courtyard that leads to the breezeway door. “One of the challenges was separating the more utilitarian aspects, like the driveway, from the garden,” Carter says. A row of three columnar Kindred Spirit oaks (Quercus x warei ‘Nadler’, zones 4 to 8) delineates the driveway from the entry courtyard.

See why you should hire a professional who uses Houzz Pro software

“The walkway was designed to pull you into the space,” Carter says. From the street, the new path beckons visitors through the courtyard garden directly to the breezeway entry.

Made of bluestone pavers and grouted pea gravel, the path is a generous 5 feet wide — the minimum width Carter uses to ensure that two people can stroll comfortably side by side. The experience feels unconstrained and casual as the walkway winds through the plantings. “We made it feel like a courtyard because we wanted it to feel magical and intimate,” Carter says.

In addition to the Kindred Spirit oak trees on the left, the courtyard features a European hornbeam next to the house and a compact blue Japanese white pine (Pinus parviflora ‘Glauca Compacta’, zones 5 to 8) on the far left. “The pine tree added some structure at the back of the garden,” Carter says.

The designer and homeowners had a wonderful time working on this outdoor space together. “I find that people who love and care for their gardens like they do have gardens that flourish,” he says of the homeowners.

More on Houzz
Read more landscape stories
Browse outdoor photos for ideas
Find design and remodeling pros