this is the easy living yards podcast

I’m your host that still needs to cut

the grass Ben Hale let’s jump in and

learn how to have a healthy beautiful

yard less work so you can enjoy more

time doing what you love what’s up and

welcome to episode 24 of the easy living

yards podcast today we are talking about

front yard landscaping ideas so I get so

many questions from so many different

people and it seems most of the time we

want to know what to do with our front

yard right most of us have kind of a big

lawn in the front maybe a garden right

up close to the to the house and that’s

about it and it just doesn’t seem quite

right it doesn’t seem like enough or it

doesn’t seem to pop or you know it just

just doesn’t have the feel that you want

to feel with your yard so so that’s what

we’re gonna be talking about today is is

we’re not gonna be too deep into you

know some of the technical stuff that

we’ve been talking about in previous

episodes but more so just you know kind

of bouncing some ideas around I want to

get you guys thinking about things you

could do with your yard there’s always

something different you could do and of

course you know our focus is to save

time on our yard so we want to do these

ideas in a way that is very

low-maintenance doesn’t take a whole lot

of work so that’s just something when

you know you got to keep in mind as

we’re talking about these ideas so

Before we jump in feet first into our

topic today I just wanted to say – happy

July and you know we’re well into summer

now and I hope you’re really enjoying

your summer if you have kids I hope your

kids are enjoying the summer you know

these are the moments it my wife was

talking to me the other day and saying

you know it’s kind of crazy with kids

that you only have 18 summers with them

and then they’re basically gone and

that’s that’s just kind of crazy to

think about when you put it in that

perspective and you know that’s that’s

why what we talk about here is so

important is is we don’t want to spend

that time having to be outside cutting

the grass pulling weeds

and all that sort of you know routine

maintenance work in our yard when we

could be spending it some you know very

valuable time with our family and and

that’s just so important and you know I

got the chance just the other this past

weekend I’m kind of like I’m not in a

funk right now but you know I’m kind of

like just I guess mellowed out you know

I had a nice fun weekend with some

buddies I got the chance to escape away

from the family a little bit not that

you know I not in a bad way but it you

know it’s nice to take a break and so I

got to hang out with some buddies we

went canoeing

if you’ve ever in the Midwest region and

you want to find a cool space we went to

the Laurel River Lake in southern

Kentucky and and man what a beautiful

lake it was awesome the water clarity

was amazing and so if you’re an

outdoorsy person and you’d like to you

know paddle around on a lake or whatever

just go camping such a beautiful place

you know when did some lake swimming and

we didn’t feel like we were swimming

through toxic algae which so many lakes

seem like they have these days and stuff

and you know such beautiful water

clarity you could we could drop our

paddles all the way down the water and

see the end of the paddle so yeah we

just canoed around for the weekend had a

great time and a beautiful weather

beautiful place and good time with a

friend so that’s what summers about guys

so you know as we’re talking about all

this this landscaping stuff again let’s

just keep the focus that this is so we

can free up time in our life to do more

important things so we of course we all

want to have just this beautiful

welcoming space but it’s not worth

anything if we can’t live in it or or

step away from it for a while and so

let’s do that with our yards let’s let’s

have a beautiful yard but let’s have it

in a way where we don’t have to be

working on it all the time so let’s jump

in and talk about some front yard

landscaping ideas for today

okay so when I think about most people’s

front yards and the conversations I have

with people when they’re talking about

their their landscape a lot of times the

focus is on their front yard I don’t

know what to do with my front yard or it

just doesn’t you know

have need some updating or it needs to

be spruced up or I want to amp my curb

appeal and so if I can summarize what I

feel that most people’s goals are with

their front yards they want to enhance

their curb appeal so you know people

driving down the street look at your

yard and they’re like oh that’s a nice

you know I love your your yard or like

you know it really makes your house look

great or whatever they want a welcoming

space so you know neighbors friends you

drive up on the way home from work and

you feel welcomed back to your home or

your guests feel welcomed into your home

and and so that’s really important to a

lot of people and you also want

something that’s easy right so that’s

why we’re here is we want an easy

landscape we don’t want to have to be

out there during the hot July Sun and

trying to you know put some mulch down

or spray some weeds or pull some weeds

or or whatever we want to just enjoy it

and that’s really important too so how

do we get some of these goals how do we

meet some of these goals what do we

actually do with our yard so today I’m

gonna be kind of talking about just you

know I guess kind of like Pinterest

style ideas some things we can do to our

front yard certain spaces to look at

some ideas to toss around and and how to

enhance your curb appeal make your space

feel a bit more welcoming what are the

primary factors in that and and how do

we make it easy I’m gonna kind of shelf

some of the easy stuff I’m gonna give

you a lot of resources to check out

because we’ve talked a lot about that in

other episodes and so what I’m gonna do

for the easy stuff is referenced some of

those episodes touch on it real quick in

that way we can spend more time just

talking about some ideas hashing out

some cool stuff okay so let’s just kind

of you know we’ll work our way toward

your house from your street so starting

at the edge of your property what are

the aspects of your property that we

could really change I’m gonna assume

that this might not be the case but

let’s just assume for the sake of this

discussion that your front yard is

mostly a grass lawn okay

depending upon where you live that might

be really different maybe you have you

know just scrub sandy bare stuff maybe

it’s mostly weeds maybe it’s mostly

turfgrass maybe it’s mostly wooded right

that I would say is probably the rarity

here but most people have a lawn and so

let’s just start with that and if you

don’t have that in your front yard

consider how these suggestions might

apply to you as well because they these

principles are these suggestions these

ideas can be kind of tweaked you know to

fit your needs as well so let’s just say

I’m a nosy neighbor tooling down the

street my my car on the way back home

from my job on the way past your house

to my house right so I’m tooling down

the road DubLi did we do and trying to

see oh look so-and-so Billy Bob did a

great job with his front landscape and

okay I can’t help myself all right let’s

just say okay your neighbor your nosy

neighbor sees your landscape and thinks

it’s amazing just based on what you did

with the front space of your yard what

would that be if you’re asking me what I

would think is is some sort of framing

around your driveway that welcomes you

into the property okay so you want

something that instead of kind of

blocking people out you want something

that attracts people to your landscape

and so sometimes a very you can go

overboard with this because if you go

overboard and plant too much stuff or

too heavy or too dense it actually kind

of serves as like a wall or a visual

barrier and that is not welcoming so

what you want is something that people

can see over or see past or kind of

builds a picture frame of a space that

welcomes people in so think of I guess a

great example and I saw this on the way

home from my canoe trip in Kentucky this

is really popular in southern Kentucky

to have you know your big Vista along

your driveway and it’s tree-lined right

so you have a line of trees framing a

driveway kind of tunneling you in

through the space and it kind of kind of

creates a sense of mystery as you go

through the tunnel because there is a

bit of a visual barrier with these big

trees on either side of the driveway but

it opens up to you right in the middle

with the the entrance of the driveway

and that pulls you in that kind of

welcomes you into the mystery of of

what’s around the bend as you go into

somebody’s big farm property right so

similarly I’m not suggesting you have a

two-mile long driveway with a bunch of

trees on it but at the front of your

property what you can do is you can have

a border planting on each side of your

driveway that for one is shaped where

it’s easy to maintain along the edges of

your your garden bed as well as with

your driveway and how it interacts there

I’m not gonna get into that too much

today of course but how just having

something on either side of your Drive

it can be one way to to kind of welcome

people into the space so so it could be

along the whole driveway lengths or it

could just be at the front corners of

your driveway you can have a little bed

on either side of your driveway that is

big enough to feel substantial not too

big to feel imposing and not too small

to feel like it’s just kind of a you

know too little plants on the other side

that doesn’t really do much so what that

does is kind of it pulls the eye into

that space instead of just being green

lawn with some concrete for your

driveway you have this this kind of

border on either side that attracts the

eye and provides a visual balance on

either side of the driveway and in

accents the driveway and says this is

the space to come into my yard

okay now along with that a lot of people

end up having a mailbox right there and

so a lot of people do like to have a

mailbox planting where it’s just you

know a couple annual per or perennial

flowers right at the base of the mailbox

and what you can do is incorporate that

mailbox planting into this garden border

and so it serves multiple functions of

of kind of not leaving your mailbox

hanging in the middle of yard which

people really don’t like but at the same

time a lot of us don’t understand what

to do with our mailbox you don’t do you

just have like a little circle of

flowers around and that’s it well for

one that kind of adds to the maintenance

nightmare of one more thing to kind of

have to mow a circle around so if you

kind of incorporated this into your

little

drive away corner garden bed it can make

one less thing to mow around by kind of

making the garden bed incorporated into

it and it also can kind of bring in your

mailbox into into part of this welcoming

space where it doesn’t stand out so much

and it just kind of blends in so of

course with these plantings you want to

make sure you choose the right plants

that don’t get massively big and they’re

not going to take over something like

your driveway where they’re gonna flop

onto your driveway or branches are gonna

be arching over where you want to drive

or same with your mailbox you don’t want

something that’s gonna grow up to cover

your mailbox so plant selection is very

important in these limited spaces to

have the right types of structured

plantings as well as the right the right

use for them as well with the right size

in that sort of thing okay so that’s

where I would start is consider your

property edge what can you do to kind of

create a welcoming space it’s like the

doormat for your lawn right so what can

you do to create the doormat for your

lawn right on either side of your

driveway okay so your nosy neighbor has

decided to drive up your driveway and

come actually knock on your door so what

do you want to do to make your nosy

neighbor feel as welcome as possible

once they’re getting out of their car

well the next thing I think of here and

this isn’t gospel by any means but the

next thing I think of is your entrance

your entryway right so this includes

your front door your front porch if you

have one or your stoop and your walkway

coming from your driveway if you have a

walkway or or at least you know kind of

some sort of quarter circle concrete pad

or something so there’s usually some

sort of transition between the driveway

and the front of the house and and it’s

important to make that space also feel

welcoming and inviting and there’s a lot

of common mistakes that that do the

opposite and so the first thing is let’s

focus on the walkway okay the walkway is

so often the most common mistake with

entries and this is a very

substantial mistake on our property as

well as we have a pretty decently sized

house it’s a two-story house with an

attached garage but there’s this tiny

little thin walkway going up to the

front porch so basically what you’re

saying is I have this big awesome space

inside of my house but Oh in order to

get to it please walk single file down

the pathway and don’t step off the

pathway even though it feels more direct

to go the other way so what you’re doing

is you’re creating an area of

restriction or you’re funneling people

into a tight space so think of if you

had a guest coming over with a small

child instead of you know holding the

child’s hand walking next to them on

with our house it’s thin enough where we

have to let the children go in front or

behind us in order to all fit down this

little pathway and this is you know it’s

maybe a two foot to three foot wide path

well at minimum you would like to have

your path three foot wide so if you

could do wider that’s what that does is

that really opens up the space your

entry it kind of creates a flow a visual

pattern and a physical pattern of space

to go into your house so if you were

able to widen your front pathway it can

go

great lengths to actually improve the

welcoming feel to your house so with

widening your walkway what you can also

do is provide borders along either side

of the path and so this would be

planting borders that again these are

low-maintenance planting beds that

replace lawn that is hopefully higher

maintenance so we’re talking about stuff

we only have to touch maybe once maybe

twice a year and that’s it

and again I’ll get to how we do that

with with later content here but for now

the border entry path what we wanted to

do is to kind guide you visually along

the path toward your front door and so

by providing a frame of sorts it really

funnels people through that space and

towards your front door so you feel

naturally like you want to continue

along the path to go to your front door

okay so what you want here is something

that’s not too tall that doesn’t feel

like it’s going to encroach on you or

doesn’t feel like it’s going to squeeze

you in the pathway but instead you know

it’s it’s tall enough to provide a I

guess tall enough to to really visually

pop so it’s not just you know some tiny

little 6-inch flowers and that’s it but

you want something that has a little bit

of structure to it and and kind of just

pulls you through the space because I

think about it you’re a five to six foot

individual most likely and and so you

want something that kind of comes up a

little bit to where it just feels like

you’re part of the space and so for this

space like I said you don’t want

something that’s massive that’s going to

feel like it’s going to close you in you

don’t want to feel like you’re going

through a tight space at this point you

want something that kind of you just

feel part of and you can kind of flow

through it okay and at the same time if

you have something too big there too it

also might block visual I guess the view

of your your front yard your front door

at the same time so again this is part

of the experiences you can look back

from the entryway toward your front yard

as well as look forward to your front

door and so both of those things are

important to experience your space from

different angles okay so the border path

garden is nice to have at the same time

though you don’t want to completely cut

off access to your yard and so that’s

what a lot of entry paths do is you feel

like you’re constricted to this path and

you can’t deviate from it especially if

you put a border garden along it right

so what’s important here is to provide a

subtle means of daeviation I guess right

allow ourselves to allow ourselves to

have a little bit of devious behavior

and what I mean here is that we still

want people to experience our yard and

we want to experience our yard and we

don’t want to have to cut through our

garden beds for that we don’t have to

feel like we’re cheating or anything so

what we do is we provide

a way to do so that’s convenient

that’s easy and that’s also attractive

and so a great thing to do here is like

a great example is if you have your

front pathway that leads to your front

porch but you also have a small say

paver stone pathway leading from your

entry walk toward your front yard so

through the little garden space that you

have so it allows you to be to have the

chance to step away from the front

entrance path and go into your yard and

this is really important for some stuff

I’m gonna talk about in just a little

bit now before we get to that I just

want to recap again for our entrance

path we want to have a nice wide access

point so a nice wide walkway we want to

border it with some plantings we also

want to somehow allow access to our yard

from the pathway and we want to just in

general the theme here is to have ample

space or plenty of space for access so

this is access to and from your driveway

to your front porch as well as to your

yard and that’s really important so

before we talk about the rest of your

yard let’s talk about the front of your

house so this is the space that’s most

often already planted with some sort of

garden bed and if it’s a leftover from

when the house is built a lot of times

you know the the construction company or

the contractors just kind of slap

together a little rectangular bed right

at the front of the house and and that’s

it and you know a couple generic plants

thrown in there and that’s it what we

want to do in general is kind of expand

that we want to we want to allow a

plenty of transition space between the

the very rigid structure of the house to

the non rigid structure of our landscape

so we want to provide a nice transition

and that little what with some

landscapers call those that you know

dislike the general contractor planting

as they call them mustache plantings

because you have your house with the

mustache of you bushes or boxwoods and

and if you like that that’s totally fine

but it’s just it kind of makes me Chuck

when I hear them call a moustache

planning cuz it puts a funny visual in

my head anyway so what we want to do is

kind of stretch that transition

horizontally away from your house and

and provide a bit more of a garden space

and again this is a low-maintenance

garden so what we’re doing here while

there’s a bit of work to to establish

this garden it should be something we

can just kind of let go and provide us

with a lot of beauty and a lot of

interest and and hopefully fun as well

just to enjoy the space okay so in order

to do that I’m gonna talk about a few

principles of what you want to do with a

front garden bed or a few ideas of what

you can do with a front garden bed and

then I’ll talk about just to touch a

little bit on on what types of plantings

to put in there okay so as far as what

you want to consider is you want your

house to be visible it’s this is a

common mistake where you see the house

that has planted a few trees maybe 20

years ago really close to the house and

then by the time the trees grow up to

the mature size or they begin to grow

their mature size they’ve completely

engulfed the front house and so you can

hardly see the front of the house

through the trees okay you know it’s

kind of like that that metaphor or that

saying you can’t see the forest through

the trees right so you can’t actually

see the house through the trees because

these trees were planted so close to the

house or maybe in such a small space

there was an ample space for this type

of plant that they totally dominate the

space and what you end up with is not a

welcoming space but they just kind of a

cramped and congested space and and so

you want to make sure your house is

adequately visible not only at the time

of planting but in the future after the

plants mature somewhat the next piece

that a lot of people try to do with

plantings is to break up solid lines

so this is both the horizontal and

vertical lines of your house you know

there’s a lot of rigidity to a house

right so a lot of square angles and it

doesn’t really blend well with your

typical landscape and so kind of

providing some plants to break up some

of that structure visually really helps

with making your house feel like it fits

into your landscape a bit more so when I

mean breaking up solid lines is

sometimes you can plant along corners or

along where there’s a transition in the

architecture where if a piece of the

architecture comes out from the house

along either you know to frame windows

that without obscuring them also

horizontally providing stuff that at the

base of your house kind of covers up the

the line that where your house meets the

soil and so all of these sorts of things

can really help break up the solid lines

or the rigidity of your home the next

piece that’s really helpful if you can

do this especially if your home has some

unique features is to accentuate the

architecture so this is a bit more of a

difficult thing to do it’s a bit of an

artistic thing to do but to to kind of

notice some some themes within your

architecture and see how you can can

mirror them or mimic them or draw them

out or accentuate them in your landscape

so a great common example of this is

let’s say you have certain color as a

accent on your house on the front of

your home well can you find any plants

that maybe have a similar shade or a

similar texture and that can provide you

know a transition in that way between

the home the physical hard scape

structure of your home and the organic

structure of your plants through color

or through texture so that’s one great

example okay

so aside from making your house visible

breaking up solid lines and accentuating

your arc

you also just simply want to add visual

interest and this kind of goes

hand-in-hand with some of the other

prints or ideas we just talked about but

visual interests you know a lot of

houses they’re just kind of playing by

themselves some of them if again if

you’re lucky you might have a really

interesting house maybe some really old

architecture to it and if that’s the

case you don’t want to be covering that

up you want to be accentuating but if

you have a more recently built house

odds are you have some lack of visual

interest to the structure of the house

itself and so just by adding some varied

textures varied forms varied heights and

very groupings of plants varied colors

as well you can really enhance the

visual structure of your space and your

house also you know a lot of people like

to add planter boxes to their windows

that’s another great transition as well

now if you do that I would strongly

suggest looking into some self watering

type planters or plant it with plants

that can just kind of totally take care

of themselves in very dry conditions

without you having to sit there and

water them all the time because planter

boxes can end up being a really quite a

bit work if you aren’t around to take

care of them that can be a pain okay so

now a little bit about the plantings

themselves when you’re talking about the

front of your house so you might see

certain houses think of like your

Italian villa landscape you see all

these like columnar type trees that are

so beautiful it kind of gives you like a

I don’t know like a Tuscan feel or

whatever right so vertical columnar

structure looks really nice for framing

so this is where you can frame your

house on either side of your entrance or

on corners of your home

that’s where columnar structure looks

really nice and there’s a lot of

culinary forms of trees out there and if

you’re not familiar with columnar

basically very straight and narrow trees

or plants

those can be really nice to kind of

serve as a frame or a frame of reference

and they can also just kind of

camouflage some of that solid line of

the corner and so it again helps break

it into a bit more of an organic form

because you have your your vertical line

of your plant that kind of pairs with

the vertical line of your corner and it

just kind of provides a bit of a

transition between the hard line of your

house to a less rigid line of a plant

okay so columnar structure looks really

nice for framing a varied structure so

all sorts of different structures helps

blend a landscape in a house together

and so you start you know potentially

close to your house with different types

of structure and you kind of step down

out into the landscape but you’re also

providing just a varied structure

horizontally across your landscape to

provide different visual interest so you

might use different forms of plants you

might so you might have grasses in

certain space you might have forbs in

another space or Bhatia’s perennials

select your some of your perennial

flowers you might have a shrub here and

there that sort of thing so you have

different structure with different forms

that really kind of provide some visual

interest and and kind of breaks things

apart and kind of transitions you away

from the house and into your landscape

now you don’t want to just you know

haphazardly slap stuff together here but

and there is an art to it it’s really

hard to explain especially in a short

episode but just keep that in mind you

know you want to pull together some

elements that look nice together don’t

go overboard with trying to have

everything fit into your your space but

you know put a few things together look

at some examples online of what looks

really nice to you and try and you know

mimic some of that adopt some of that

and see what you can do okay now the

next piece is just to extend your garden

space outward from the house so I kind

of already mentioned this where you your

typical house and this is true for our

house as well your typical house has a

rectangular garden bed right in front of

the house and that’s it and so ours is

about four feet deep right now

it’s it’s full of weeds and that’s about

it and and so what you want to do is you

can you can extend that further out so

you’re really providing more of a

transition space between your house your

physical house and your yard and so it

kind of gives more space to provide a

beautiful transition it guides the eye

from one place to the other basically

and and so in that way you can have a

lot more beauty and hopefully in a very

low-maintenance way that provides just a

more subtle transition and and so I know

I’m really kind of almost sounding like

a broken record here but but this

transition extending this transition

what it does really is is breaks up the

physical form of your home the very

rigid and square form of your house and

just makes it more of a welcoming space

so again it goes back to that creating a

welcoming space enhancing curb appeal

and of course making it easy at the same

time so what we’re doing here is we’re

breaking up some of those hard lines

we’re providing more of a gap of

transition to provide more interest and

to guide the eye throughout the space

okay enough about the front of our house

now let’s talk about the rest of our

yard so for the rest of our yard a lot

of times you know we have this big wide

lawn and the reality is even though a

lot of us like to have a lawn for the

sake of playing in it or you know

thinking that we’re gonna host a NFL

practice game in our front yard someday

the reality is we could deal with a lot

less lawn than we have and if you want

to be honest with yourself I would bet

that if you sat down and thought about

it you could probably get away with

reducing your lawn quite a bit

now we’re tricked into thinking that our

lawns are pretty low maintenance right

we have to cut them and that’s about it

maybe fertilize them if you’re actually

really investing in your lawn but the

reality is cutting and it’s in

especially fertilizing and some of the

other maintenance tests take a quite a

bit of work in time and it’s also not

something that you can just do whenever

you want to it’s something that is

pretty

rigid in the timing that you have to do

it because if you just let your grass

grow a little bit too long it starts to

look pretty unsightly and for that

reason I’m I’m not a huge fan of lawns

and while we definitely have way too

much of it and it’s a it’s something

that you have to do when it’s growing

and if you you don’t have much

flexibility with it so let’s create some

outdoor spaces that we enjoy and and

let’s not go overboard with our lawn and

instead we can provide a lot more visual

interest with other garden beds and that

sort of thing

so as far as an interactive space it is

nice to have some sort of play space

outside and even if you’re not a kid

okay

everybody there’s a kid inside all right

so with our with our play space

especially with kids you know I’m having

a small lawn space at least to play

around run around do crazy things is

very important and this can be a

dual-purpose space it can also serve as

a space for your mobile fire pit it can

serve as an outdoor room which I’ll

mention a little bit more in just a

second but what we want to do with this

play space is is ensure it’s has enough

space you can also frame it with garden

beds as well to really make it a

distinct outdoor space so it kind of

creates a room outside of your home now

we want to ensure this space is success

accessible so like I mentioned earlier

with our entry pathway is make sure

there’s a visual and physical space to

travel from your front door and any

other part of your any other travel

corridor throughout your house to this

outdoor space and make it easy so make

it wide enough accessible enough

visually pleasing and that’ll make sure

this space is used more you could

potentially consider whether you want

this place to be in the shade or in the

Sun depending upon what type of

activities you’re considering and also

what sort of leisure you might want to

have here as well so if you have your

kids out there playing would you like to

have a small space in the shade with a

where you can just set up

lawn chair and enjoy reading a book

while your kids are playing hopefully

well contained and not too crazy

okay so onto the outdoor room idea so

when you’re considering an outdoor room

usually the first thing I think of is

that it’s a somewhat either physically

or mentally separated space from other

parts of your yard and so this doesn’t

have to be fully secluded you know you

don’t have to have a big privacy fence

or a ton of Arbor vitaes growing up or

anything like that to fully screen the

space but you at least want to separate

the space and designate so it looks

obvious that this is a designated space

for for whatever whatever your purposes

are so it could be for leisure it could

be for entertainment it could be for

both it could be for play and and so

let’s just say for entertainment and

guests purposes as well as for leisure

so what you could consider here is some

durable patio furniture that could be

out there either just for when you’re

entertaining or permanently if you’d

prefer but how do you integrate that how

do you make a space that that looks

natural and inviting and and interesting

and fun right and so again you could

have permanent patio furniture you could

have movable stuff you couldn’t even

install a front patio space if you

wanted so most of the time you think of

a backyard right but what if you had

that sort of welcoming space right in

your front yard and of course framed by

some beautiful plantings a beautiful

garden that doesn’t take a lot of work

but really provides a lot of interest so

you can really entertain your guests out

there and have a basically an extension

of your home out into your landscape so

that’s basically it guys for the ideas I

had today I could talk for hours I’m

sure on all sorts of different things we

could do but I wanted to keep our

attention focused on just a few primary

things

so just to recap some of those primary

spaces we’re talking about is framing or

providing a welcoming space at the very

front of your property so around your

driveway slash mail

area also welcoming people along the

front entryway so how do we make the

front entryway the most welcoming space

possible how to make your house

transition well from your house the

physical structure to the organic

structure of your landscape so how do we

make some extend those those traditional

foundation plantings into something

that’s a beautiful transition provides a

lot of Appeal and and welcomes people

into the space and last of course is the

how do we create an interactive space

with the rest of our front yard how do

we create potentially an outdoor room or

a play area or something that’s just it

looks like it wants to be it brings you

into the space you want to be there you

want to spend time there you want to go

there and feel welcome so now I want to

talk to a little bit about just how to

do some of this stuff so for design

ideas and principles in episode 5 I

recorded a episode on garden basics for

your yard and in there I talked I broke

down in just one episode I broke down

the primary principles of how to have a

good design so how to make sure you have

flow you have order to your design you

have good form all those important

things that a professional designer

thinks about when they’re considering a

design for a space so it’s good to

understand what some of that stuff is

even if you plan on hiring some of this

work out it just helps you understand

what their process is or if you’re doing

it yourself kind of gives you a little

bit of guidance on what you can do for

the greatest impact so that’s where you

should check out for design and of

course all these will be linked in the

show notes and as far as easy

maintenance I want to make sure when

you’re making these garden beds these

aren’t something that you have to sit

there and pull weeds in you have to

nurse a bunch of plants or keep them

watered or whatever this is something

hopefully we plant it we do some work to

establish it and then after that we

enjoy it okay

and we enjoy our lives we can go

canoeing right okay

so to ensure we can do that with our

landscape to have an easy landscape when

we’re putting in these new garden beds

creating this new welcoming space I want

you to check out these episodes now this

is gonna sound a little overwhelming

because I’m talking about four episodes

here they’re all very important but guys

just take them one bite at a time okay

and and remember any positive movement

you take in your landscape is a positive

step forward okay so don’t feel

overwhelmed by this this isn’t something

we have to feel overwhelmed by this is

something where we we are transitioning

our life to have more time in our life

and so this is it it can be a slow

transition this isn’t something to be

overwhelming to add stress to our life

instead this is something we’re going to

work toward and in slowly build so with

that check out episode two and three

which talked about low maintenance

landscaping those kind of talk they go

over the the very fundamentals of low

maintenance landscaping and how to have

a low maintenance yard okay so those are

very important you can also check out

episode six which talks about what to do

before starting a project so this is

really important when you’re considering

actually taking action in your yard

there are some very important things you

should do to avoid major mistakes with

your project so it’s really good to

check out that episode and once you’ve

checked all the boxes to understand what

to do before starting a project you can

check out episode ten where I talk about

how to start a new garden bed so this

will go through everything you need to

do from getting rid of what’s already

there in that space prepping it for a

new planting and then actually planting

it and doing the work so guys that goes

through the basics of easy maintenance

for your new garden beds so you can have

a low maintenance landscape and enjoy

your life again that’s what we’re all

about here guys so I want you to check

out today’s links for any of that stuff

if you’re not sure what to do also if

you have any

you just want to ask a question you can

go over to easy living yards calm slash

pod and right there there’s a button to

ask a question or leave a comment so if

you have any questions or comments head

on over and check out that link okay

next is if this just feels totally

overwhelming to you but this is still

something you want let’s get together

for a consultation so you can go over to

easy living yards calm slash consulting

and there you’ll find the options to

connect with me and we can talk about

your specific needs and I can help you

step by step along the way

so this isn’t so difficult and with that

guys I just want to say thank you so

much for tuning in and make sure you

live with passion and make tomorrow

better than today

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