Full Sun Front Yard Landscape Ideas

Vines

• Encourage the blooming of Wisteria frutescens "American wisteria vine" by pruning it regularly, advises the Missouri Botanical Garden. American wisteria flowers best in full sun. Use it in your front yard on a pergola, arbor, trellis or fence. Let it grow and generate its drooping clusters of lilac-shaded flowers during the spring in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 5 through 9. Cover a slope or fence with Lonicera sempervirens "Trumpet honeysuckle" in your front yard; its elongated, thin flowers attract hummingbirds, reports the University of Connecticut Plant Database. Growing as long as 20 feet, trumpet honeysuckle is cold hardy to the warmest parts of USDA zone 3.

Perennials

• Although Ajuga reptans "Bugleweed" grows in shade, its optimum foliage color – dark green – occurs in full sun. Bugleweed is a versatile perennial because it tolerates poor quality soil and grows from USDA zone 3 through zone 10. Bugleweed serves as ground cover, especially on sloping front yards where it grows to 12 inches and produces spikes of blue flowers. Tanacetum parthenium "Feverfew" is a perennial for zones 5 through 9. Milken Double White is a cultivar growing to 2 feet and featuring feathery foliage with a citrusy smell. The white flowers emerge in June and bloom through September, making this form a fine addition to a front yard flower garden.

Shrubs

• A shrub from the European Alps, Spirea decumbens will do just fine in a front yard from USDA zones 5 through 9. Use this small bush along foundations, to line sidewalks and walkways or as ground cover in a sunny front yard setting. It grows to just 9 inches high, but has white flowers in abundance during May and June. Use "Sensation," a common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) cultivar, as a specimen plant or in a shrub border in the front of the house. It thrives in full sun, growing to 15 feet. Sensation is most attractive during April and May when it blooms, producing purple flowers with white along the petals’ borders.

Deciduous Trees

• Appropriate as a shade tree or specimen tree for your front lawn, Fraxinus americana “Autumn Purple” is a male cultivar of white ash. This means it will not produce the annoying and messy seeds that the parent species does. Autumn Purple stands out in fall because of its red-purple foliage. The tree grows to 60 feet in USDA zones 3 through 9. Birds and other forms of wildlife will visit your front yard to seek the fruits of the Malus sargentii "Sargent crabapple tree." Cold hardy to zone 4, this small tree develops to 8 feet. Look for attractive flowers in April and May that change into small ornamental red fruits.