Entrance walk edged with pineleaf penstemon and daylily. Spears Horn Architects
Inspiration for a mid-sized contemporary drought-tolerant and full sun front yard stone garden path in Albuquerque for summer.

drought tolerant plants, decomposed granite, flagstone, beach rock & 2-tone bark make a statement in this ranch style home, Susan Ciufo
Design ideas for a mid-sized coastal full sun front yard mulch landscaping in Los Angeles.

Photos by Barbara Wilson. Bedford equine compound. Mock stone bridge created along the mile long entry drive. Stream channel created with stones to allow runoff from the detention pond on the other side of the bridge flow into an existing wetland and pond downstream. A lovely equine compound was created out of a 35 acre woodland in Bedford Corners. The design team helped the owners create the home of their dreams out of a parcel with dense woodlands, a pond and NY State wetlands. Barbara was part of the team that helped coordinate local and state wetland permits for building a mile long driveway to the future house site thru wetlands and around an existing pond. She facilitated the layout of the horse paddocks, by obtaining tree permits to clear almost 5 acres for the future grazing areas and an outdoor riding ring. She then supervised the entire development of the landscape on the property. Fences were added enclosing the paddocks. A swimming pool and pool house were laid out to allow easy access to the house without blocking views to the adjacent woodlands. A custom spa was carved out of a piece of ledge at one end of the pool. An outdoor kitchen was designed for the pool area patio and another smaller stand-alone grill was provided at the main house. Mature plantings were added surrounding the house, driveway and outbuildings to create a luxuriant setting for the quaint farmhouse styled home. Mature apple trees were planted along the driveway between the barn and the main house to provide fruit for the family. A custom designed bridge and wood railing system was added along the entry drive where a detention pond overflow connected to an existing pond.

This 2014 Luxury Home was part of Midwest Home's Tour. David Kopfmann of Yardscapes, was able to lend to the architecture of the home and create some very detailed touches with different styles of stone and plant material. This image is of the front entrance, where David used concrete pavers for the driveway and mortared stone pillars. Plant material was installed to create texture and color. Boulder outcroppings were also used to lend some interest and retaining along the walkway.

This tropical landscape compliments this Key West style home in Naples, FL. It has a great mixture of various palms, crotons, bushes, and other tropical specimens.

Photo of a southwestern drought-tolerant and full sun front yard gravel garden path in Albuquerque for summer.

Originally a nearly three-story tall 1920’s European-styled home was turned into a modern villa for work and home. A series of low concrete retaining wall planters and steps gradually takes you up to the second level entry, grounding or anchoring the house into the site, as does a new wrap around veranda and trellis. Large eave overhangs on the upper roof were designed to give the home presence and were accented with a Mid-century orange color. The new master bedroom addition white box creates a better sense of entry and opens to the wrap around veranda at the opposite side. Inside the owners live on the lower floor and work on the upper floor with the garage basement for storage, archives and a ceramics studio. New windows and open spaces were created for the graphic designer owners; displaying their mid-century modern furnishings collection. A lot of effort went into attempting to lower the house visually by bringing the ground plane higher with the concrete retaining wall planters, steps, wrap around veranda and trellis, and the prominent roof with exaggerated overhangs. That the eaves were painted orange is a cool reflection of the owner’s Dutch heritage. Budget was a driver for the project and it was determined that the footprint of the home should have minimal extensions and that the new windows remain in the same relative locations as the old ones. Wall removal was utilized versus moving and building new walls where possible. Photo Credit: John Sutton Photography.

Inspiration for a southwestern drought-tolerant and full sun front yard gravel garden path in Albuquerque for summer.

Dry set oversize limestone for walking path to front door. Old trough made into water feature.
Inspiration for a large rustic full sun front yard stone landscaping in Austin for summer.

This front yard had to also act as a clients back yard. The existing back yard is a ravine, so there is little room to functionally use it. This created a design element to create a sense of space/privacy while also allowing the Mid Century Modern Architecture to shine through. (and keep the feel of a front yard) We used concrete walls to break up the rooms, and guide people into the front entrance. We added IPE details on the wall and planters to soften the concrete, and Ore Inc aluminum containers with a rust finish to frame the entrance. The Aspen trees break the horizontal plane and are lit up at night, further defining the front yard. All the trees are on color lights and have the ability to change at the click of a button for both holidays, and seasonal accents. The slate chip beds keep the bed lines clean and clearly define the planting ares versus the lawn areas. The walkway is one monolithic pour that mimics the look of large scale pavers, with the added function of smooth,set-in-place, concrete.

At the top of the hill, this Kensington home had modest beginnings as a “1940’s Ranchburger”, but with panoramic views of San Francisco to the west and Tilden Park to the east. Inspired by the Owner’s desire to realize the property’s potential and meet the needs of their creative family, our design approach started with a drive to connect common areas of the house with the outdoors. The flow of space from living, family, dining, and kitchen areas was reconfigured to open onto a new “wrap-around deck” in the rear yard. Special attention to space, light, and proportion led to raising the ceiling in the living/dining room creating a “great hall” at the center of the house. A new master bedroom suite, with private terrace and sitting room, was added upstairs under a butterfly roof that frames dramatic views on both sides of the house. A new gable over the entry for enhanced street presence. The eclectic mix of materials, forms, and saturated colors give the house a playful modern appeal. Credits: Photos by Mark Costantini Contractor Lewis Fine Buildings

This California Ranch style home was given a contemporary front entry to suit the lifestyle of a growing family. A large front lawn was replaced with drought tolerant ornamental grasses, shrubs and succulents that can withstand high summer temperatures. The new front entry flows from the street to the front door featuring “plank” pavers that echo the horizontal lines of the ranch architecture, creating a stylish and welcoming presence from the curb. (c) 2017 Jacklyn Curry Design

Photo of a southwestern drought-tolerant and full sun front yard gravel garden path in Albuquerque for summer.

Design ideas for a transitional full sun front yard landscaping in Austin.

Bighorn Palm Desert luxury modern home front entrance walkway water feature. Photo by William MacCollum.
Photo of a mid-sized modern full sun front yard landscaping in Los Angeles.

The entry courtyard at this colonial style home uses hardy perennials, evergreens, and traditional materials to compliment the traditional style of the house. Avid gardeners, these clients wanted mixed perennial borders with a lot of color. The brick pavers are set in sand making them permeable.

We were contacted by the owner of a Houston, Texas home who asked us to design a series of gardens and landscaping features that would compliment and expand the Mediterranean theme of his house into the surrounding landscape. This house sat on a very large lot of several acres in a secluded Memorial Drive neighborhood located near the 610 Loop. The home featured a symmetrical, linear appearance in spite of its two-story build, and our client wanted a landscape and garden design that would follow these same principles of self-contained regularity and subtle linear motion. Creating a Mediterranean theme in a Houston, Texas garden and landscape is a bit more complex that it might appear at face value. The southern coast of Europe—particularly in Italy and Greece—is a mountainous area where homes and gardens are built on steep angles and sharp vertical rises. Gardens and fields are often built in terraces that climb the mountains due to the limited planting area and rough, rocky terrain. Limestone is the predominant rock type in Italy and Greece and has become iconic of this part of the world in our collective consciousness. Mediterranean homes and gardens are historically famous for their white stucco walls, olive groves, and carefully sculptured greenery embedded in a rugged limestone backdrop. The challenge lay in taking an essentially three-dimensional landscaping style and transfering it to a Houston property. As we all know, this part of Texas is very flat, so a hillside garden is out of the question in the literal sense. However, using a combination of symmetrical forms and linear progressions, along with some innovative garden materials, we were able to mimic several aspects of seaside European terrain. The key to doing this was to establish a combination of circular forms and linear patterns in the multiple garden elements we designed. French and Italian gardens place a heavy emphasis on order and symmetry, and both tend to utilize right angles to establish form. We planted a variety of low level growth around the house and rear swimming pool patio to emphasize its walls and corners. We then added three keynote forms to the landscape to create a Houston equivalent of a Mediterranean garden. The first of these forms was a knot garden centered on the front door, located just in front of the home’s motorcourt. We planted boxwoods in three circular rows that looked like terraces on a hillside. In the center of the knot garden we planted Loropatalum, punctuated with a lone Crinum lily as the center piece. The rich purple of the Loropatalum draws catches the eye, and the vertical dimension added by the lily draws it upward to the front entrance of the house. Moving then to one side of the house, we transformed a substantial portion of the yard into a parterre garden that centered on a large glass room that extended from the west wing of the house. This garden was populated by low-growth rose bushes whose amenability to constant trimming makes them an ideal plant material for parterre gardens, and whose colorful blooms a made them stand out from multiple vantage points throughout this Houston neighborhood. The garden borders were made from of boxwood hedges, and the central pathways were made using European limestone gravel that mimics the color of the limestone cliffs of the Aegean and Adriatic Seas. We then completed the design by adding dwarf yaupon, a small shrub that bears a curious resemblance to clouds, all along the borders of the gravel walkways. This helped create the impression that the garden was located on a hilltop near the sea, and that the clouds were rolling across the shoreline. One of the most appealing attributes of this Houston, Texas property is its superb location. The back of the yard borders a 50-foot ravine carved out of the earth by a major tributary of Buffalo Bayou. This seemed to us a natural destination spot for garden guests to visit after strolling around the west wing of the home to the pool. To encourage them to do so, we planted an alley of crepe myrtles leading from the pool area all the way back to the woods along the ravine. We then built a walkway out of limestone aggregate blocks that started at the parterre garden, ran alongside the house to the pool, then ran straight out through the alley of trees to the scenic overlook of the forest and stream below. For more the 20 years Exterior Worlds has specialized in servicing many of Houston's fine neighborhoods.

Designed and built by Southern Landscape, extensive planting beds and flagstone pathways highlight the exterior of this Teas Ranch House. The plant pallete includes lantana, vitex, bottlebrush, firecracker plant, esperanza, and various butterfly-attracting perennials.

A modern ranch style home with a very generous front walk and entry garden. Rustic pavers are disbursed with Pa. flagstone paving. Night lighting leads the way for evening visitors. Annual and perennials add color amongst the trees and shrubs. ©Garden Gate Landscaping, Inc./Charles W. Bowers