16 Front Yard Flower Bed Ideas for a Welcoming Entryway (2024)

How to Landscape Front Yards and Entryways to Maximize Curb Appeal

Create a Curvy Path

Boost the visual impact by installing a gently curving walkway as the border to your flowerbeds—this brings a casual feel that a straight sidewalk lacks. Incorporate cheery container gardens by the front door to add even more color, texture, and fragrance.

Embrace the Cottage-Garden Look

If you're intimidated by gardening "rules," embrace the cottage-garden aesthetic, a freewheeling, overflowing, and laidback front yard flower bed style. You don't have to live in an actual cottage: This easygoing approach pairs well with most house styles. A simple white picket fence makes a fantastic backdrop for your cottage garden's summer show.

This adorable example includes purple iris, red and apricot roses, and creeping thyme, but any romantic flowers, such as roses, peonies, or hydrangeas, are well-suited to the style.

Save Yourself from Trimming

This front yard flower bed idea is a time-saver since it can make your landscape easier to care for, with less mowing and edging to worry about. Here, colorful blooms dress up a traditional white picket fence and eliminate the need to use a string trimmer alongside it.

Accent Your Front Porch

If you have a front porch, add a skirt of colorful flowers for a pretty front yard flower bed idea. Even a tiny pocket planting like the one shown here offers great color and interest in the front yard. Mix annuals with perennials and bulbs—and a dwarf evergreen or two—so you can enjoy the display all year.

Create a Flagstone Path

For a more informal front yard flower bed idea, create a walkway with loosely spaced flagstones in lieu of a sidewalk leading up to your front door. Low-maintenance groundcovers between the stones create a carpet of color and interest.

Soften Your Sidewalk

Instead of mowing that narrow strip of yard between your fence and the sidewalk, fill it with a flower garden. The blooms add color and interest and prevent the fence from feeling like a barrier. This makes your front yard appear more welcoming.

Flaunt Lots of Color

One bold front yard flower bed idea is to use lots of color. An assortment of shades gives this landscape a romantic cottage-garden sensibility. Climbing roses on the pergola over the front entry perfume the air, and a clipped boxwood hedge helps define the yard's boundary for a cozy, enclosed feel.

Look to Jewel Tones

Soft pinks and delicate yellows are gorgeous, but why not go a bit bolder with this front yard flower bed idea? Here, bright red bougainvilleas clothe the front porch while white marguerite daisies and blue lobelia playfully cloak the front walk. Vibrant yellow pansies add a bit of extra sparkle. Choosing an unexpected color combination—like one built around jewel tones—will make your garden stand out.

Make a Statement in Spring

Orchestrate a can't-miss debut each spring with colorful bulbs, cool-season flowers (such as pansies), and spring-flowering trees and shrubs (like this redbud). As the bulbs fade, later-blooming perennials will take center stage. Accent them with summer-flowering annuals and perennials.

Repeat Effectively

Repetition is a front yard flower bed idea that garden designers use to create balance and cohesiveness. For example, to make your front yard interesting—but not overwhelming—repeat pockets of color. This can help draw the eye down a walkway or along the front of your house. Here, beautiful blue lobelia is joined by a riot of other early-blooming plants.

Bring in Lots of Texture

Spikes of low-maintenance Russian sage, sedum, and ornamental grasses, among other perennials and shrubs, add texture and color without making the front yard look unkempt or overbearing. A stretch of lawn between the foundation plantings and the sidewalk allows easy viewing of both flower gardens.

Incorporate Edible Plants

Planting flowers with your vegetables is a front yard flower bed idea that helps attract pollinators for extra yields. This flower-filled garden also incorporates many herbs and vegetables, making it a beautiful and productive space.

Play Off Your Home's Architecture

This bright yellow house is the perfect backdrop for a colorful mix of blooms in a front yard garden. The happy-hued stucco wall, brick walkway, and eye-catching blooms combine beautifully to enhance the home's Spanish theme. Likewise, use the style of your home as inspiration for your plantings.

Frame the View

Framing a view draws attention to the prettiest part of your property. Here, clematis growing on an arbor makes an enticing entryway to this striking space. The towering arch creates a tunnel effect, offering the illusion that the yard is much larger than it is while emphasizing the intricate gate and porch. Bright containers against the house help draw you in.

Plant a Screen

Create a sense of privacy by planting taller specimens near your sidewalk. If you choose somewhat open, airy plants, they will grow into a screen that allows visitors to peek through without having a wide-open view.

Live on the Edge

Don't neglect the curb. A street-side front yard flower bed creates a pocket of color away from the home and breaks up a large expanse of the front lawn. Front yard flower gardens like this pack lots of interest into a small space—attracting butterflies, birds, and other wildlife.