How to Design a Garden for the Front of a Ranch Home

A low-slung ranch home typically presents sleek horizontal lines to the front yard. The simple, elongated ranch architecture offers you, the homeowner, the opportunity to plan a front garden that expresses your personality. You can plant colorful and complex flowers such as delphiniums, foxgloves and hollyhocks to add height and visual interest to your property, or you might choose to present a simple monochromatic display of shrubs and bushes. Many ranch home gardeners choose a combination of the two approaches.

Tape measure
Blank paper
Pencil and eraser
Nursery catalogs

Instructions

- 1
  Measure the width and length of your front yard flower bed. Measure the distance between the ground and the bottom of any windows that overlook your garden.
- 2
  Create a rough sketch of your garden area and the front of your house. Pencil in the measurements to help guide your shrub and flower choices.
- 3
  Review plant and nursery catalogs to learn the growth needs and habits of plants and flowers that will grow successfully in your climate. Note their height and width as mature plants to avoid overplanting.
- 4
  Select evergreen shrubbery as a backdrop for flowering perennials and annuals in front of your ranch home. Limit your selection to two different types. Include taller greenery at the home corners, flanking a row of low-growing shrubs that extend across the back of your garden.
- 5
  Plan for up to three layers of plantings, from back to front. Plantings should decrease in height from back to front. Taller plants in the back shouldn't overgrow the windows or obstruct the view.
- 6
  Choose a ground-hugging annual such as alyssum or thyme to create a natural front border along your ranch home flower garden. Intersperse spring-flowering plants and flowering plants that bloom later in the year to create a three-season front garden.

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