Street Chic

Words by Devon Brown | Photos by Ella Howell

Your front yard is the formal introduction to your private world. It welcomes you home every day and invites guests to your front door. It is the semipublic space that serves as the mingling spot where neighbors can gather and children can chalk paint on the driveway and scootch around on their scooters. Are you getting the best value out of this precious piece of your property? Here are some front yards that we have designed and installed to add curb appeal and usable space for our clients.

Want to create a unique vibe as guests approach your home? This Fig Garden favorite of ours ties in a flair that is uniquely Californian. Field grown olive trees flank the poured in place concrete paver walkway while a perfectly selected tone of gravel effortlessly intermingles with the pavers and plants. A balance of textures adds a huge impact for this style. Combining the formality of boxwood orbs with the whimsical shape of ‘Blue Glow’ Agaves and the playful textures of ornamental grasses pulls this look together. What is more inviting than a shady walkway on a summer’s day in the Valley?

Do you have an expansive space that feels like it quickly turns into no man’s land? You don’t want to hassle with maintenance-heavy landscaping, but you do not want a barren hard surface, either. In this Green Acres courtyard, we designed a paving pattern that creates suggestive movement while leaving it open for hubs of gatherings to happen.

For young families, it is important to leave space open to sit outside and mingle while your kids play. You have other priorities than to fuss with gardening. Keep the planting minimal , interesting, and appropriate for Valley heat and colder temperatures. Remember, it’s okay to let seasonality show. It doesn’t all have to be in bloom and showy all the time. Seasons are part of life.

The phrase famously coined by architect Louis H. Sullivan “form follows function,” gives a lot of grace to work with a space instinctually. What is the purpose? This Green Acres home effectively brings guests to the front door in a somewhat unconventional way. Without the frill of obligatory front yard sign posts, this home utilizes low retaining walls to address grade differences in the most space-efficient manner, while reinforcing the architectural qualities of the home. Hardscape was intentionally placed to allow for guest parking and pathways. While we reinforced these ideas with vegetation and landscape lighting, my favorite element of all is the oversized pottery with citrus. Nothing beats citrus trees. Bright green foliage year round and showy color from the fruit in the winter months. If you take away two ideas from this article, remember, 1) never undersize pottery, and 2) you can never go wrong with citrus trees.

Your landscape should reinforce your architectural style. In this Chardonnay home, we were able to remodel a traditional front yard into a functional and aesthetically pleasing gathering space for this super social neighborhood. We designed the height of the courtyard walls to offer some privacy, while allowing the appropriate amount of visibility to avoid feeling blocked in. Sound from the fountain is a tranquil and welcoming element, not to mention a beautiful centerpiece to balance out a portion of the courtyard that was too small for a seating area.

Pro tip: Install pipes for water and drainage (and sometimes lighting too) when installing pottery. All of our pottery is automatically irrigated. Even these small pots on the columns. Huge time saver.

We love courtyards (if I haven’t been too obvious about it yet). This is a project dear to us: our own abode. It’s a deep front lot that can feel like a distant walk from the road. We broke up the walk by implementing a raised planter, which doubles as a seating area to watch the kids live the cul-de-sac life. We then added in higher courtyard walls with a custom address sign to separate a more “private” courtyard space that we decorated with a colorful bistro set, bright pottery and of course, citrus.

Pro tip: If you are designing on a budget, hedges such as a Privet (Ligustrum texanum) can achieve a similar sense of separation as a low wall—especially when planted tightly with a 2’ to 3’ spacing.

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