Gardening Your Front Yard

Projects and Ideas for Big and Small Spaces - Includes Vegetable Gardening, Pollinator Plants, Rain Gardens, and More!

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Pub Date 10 Mar 2020 | Archive Date 12 Feb 2020

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Description

Learn how to treat your front yard like a backyard without sacrificing beauty, from choosing the right plants to building walkways and setting up a front yard patio.

In Gardening Your Front Yard, author Tara Nolan (Raised Bed Revolution) of SavvyGardening.com uses her unique combination of DIY/building savvy and gardening expertise to weave you past the main pitfalls you may encounter when trying to fit a garden or gardens between your home and the street.

This beautifully illustrated and comprehensive resource shows how to accomplish several hardscaping projects, such as laying a mowing border and building a walkway; provides inspiration to create a rain garden; and gives DIY instructions for making your own raised beds, a bench, a privacy screen, and more—all custom-designed for the rigors of front-yard gardening.

Gardening Your Front Yard is a gardening book in every sense of the word, however. Choosing the right plants is even more important when you are dealing with a small, highly visible area sometimes with less than ideal growing conditions. You will find advice on:

  • Planting around foundation walls
  • Dealing with road salt
  • Planting boulevards/hell strips
  • Shade gardens
  • Privacy screening
  • Security dos and don’ts
  • How to intermingle edibles and landscape plants
  • And much more

With the sage advice and step-by-step projects of this comprehensive guide, convert your front yard from a bland grasscape to a vital living space.

Learn how to treat your front yard like a backyard without sacrificing beauty, from choosing the right plants to building walkways and setting up a front yard patio.

In Gardening Your Front Yard...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9780760364864
PRICE US$30.00 (USD)
PAGES 208

Average rating from 20 members


Featured Reviews

Thank you NetGalley and Cool Springs Press for this ARC.

There’s so much to love in this book. As a new homeowner, I don’t know how to decorate my inside or outside of my house. This was a great stepping stone with how to arrange my gardens and make DIY projects! I loved this book and found it super helpful with how to arrange and make things for a happy garden.

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I received a copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This is a great book to get you started and clued up on gardening and has some really great ideas within it for any sized garden - big or small. It gives great tips and refreshing ideas, but also offers advice as to when you may need to bring in a professional and even has some fabulous eco friendly ideas too. It shows you step by step how to make planters etc using wood and all the tools you will need for each project. It gives so much information about a broad range of things such as paths, whether to have grass, plants to use etc.
This is definitely a handy book to be within any home book collection.

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This book is more than meets the eye at first glance. It features inspirational front yard curb appeal along with the practical tips that go along with it, such planting around a foundation, starting raised beds and pathways and working with an incline. It covers privacy planting, container gardening and small space landscaping. But what makes this book stand out among others like it is the inclusion of some cool DIY plans for projects that I haven’t seen before.

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This book is exactly how it presents itself: it shows you how to garden a front yard from plants to furnishings. As someone in a condo, I read this to help get ideas for my parents' front yard, but some ideas I could also repurpose for myself. I liked that the focus was so broad and many elements of garden design were mentioned. Should we plant grass? How do you deal with a sloping property? What if I move? How do things get pollinated?
There is also some mention of container gardening, and eco-friendly options for your outside, as well as some container designs if you feel handy enough. It's not broad enough to keep the condo dweller satisfied, but to those with front properties, this should begin to cover what you're looking for.

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Chapter 2 says it all for me…"Front Yard Living is a return to being social in the front yard." The author has included lots of inspiring colorful pictures of front yards. Hints, things that you need to think about before starting, when you might need to hire a professional…all things included in this book. She shows you things that you might want to do in your yard, whatever size it might be. This would be a great reference book to sit on your coffee table and let your guest browse thru. Then take them outside and tell them what your plans are…maybe they’ll volunteer to help.

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I expected this book to focus a lot more on edible front yard gardens but I still found it immensely fun, helpful and inspirational. Nolan provides lots of photos of fabulous front yard gardens of all kinds to reduce your grass and add beauty, interest and sustainability to your front yard. Edible gardens are included, as are ideas to sneak in edible plants in attractive ways (such as a tomato plant in a decorative metal obelisk). Projects are also included for building raised beds of all kinds, making edging and lots more.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

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A fantastic idea book for front yard makeovers and just the kind of book that I would check out from the library to get some great ideas from. In fact I can't wait to do just that!!

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Advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book has everything to be a basic gardening manual and more. The designs for garden are simple and beautiful, it's easy to understand for everyone who wants to build it themselves, also the to do list, the tools we need and the materials are very clare explained.

The edition is beautiful. It's easy to see how the editors and the author take care of the book and research. The images are a strong complement to the text.

I have an organic garden and this guide is perfect for my front and backyard.

Spanish version.
Copia avanzada a cambio de una reseña honesta.

Tiene todo para ser un manual básico de jardinería y más, teniendo en cuenta que hay diseños de estantes, macetas, y más que uno mismo puede construir, incluso añade listas de lo que necesitamos para hacerlos nosotros mismos.

La edición es hermosa, se nota que tanto la autora como los editores han tenido mucho cuidado y cariño en la maquetación de todos estos datos. Las imágenes seleccionadas son muy explicativas por si misma y la lectura de las indicaciones se hace muy fácil gracias a ellas.

Tengo una huerta orgánica y poco espacio para extenderla, así que este libro me viene de maravilla.

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There is so much useful information in this book. From how to create raised flower beds, trash can area with a flower bed on top, how to decorate your lawn for increase the look of curb appeal, and which flowers go together for the best result and look.

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Great inspiration book full of photographs of a wide variety of homes and front yard gardens, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to build a few smaller garden structures and implements. Lots of ideas here.

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The idea of gardening your front yard isn't a new one but it can seem overwhelming and often people just do the basics, grass and a bit of foundation planting because they just don't know what else to do. This book will help you decide what kind of garden will fit your personality and your house for the best curb appeal ever.

Ms. Nolans book is certainly the best place to start. Gardening Your Front Yard, is full of ideas for all kinds of yard spaces; on an incline, small spaces or dry areas, it's all covered. Tons of ideas with pictures to give you a visual of what kinds of plants work best in different kinds of areas. It tackles the common misconception that you have to have a large area and tons of money, nope, you can use pops of color or containers to liven up a courtyard on a budget.
She covers other problems, shade, planting under trees and high traffic areas too!
This book covers what most would consider when planning a front yard garden, flowering plants ground covers and shrub, but that's not all, it dives into the wonderful world of vegetable gardening too! Why grow grass when you can grow food!
Along those same lines is the chapter on Eco Friendly front yards, Rain barrels and planting for pollinators and wildlife is covered too.
And it's not all about the plants either, she also covers ideas for pathways, boarders and fences. Just the thing to tie your new garden all together to a beautiful space.
Plus there are lots of easy to follow plans for projects for your garden. Such as planters, window boxes and even seating for when you want to sit back and enjoy that paradise that you have created.
Over all it's a beautiful book for all levels of gardeners, and full of ideas for all kinds of areas. It would be a good addition to any homeowners library or a gift for that new homeowner in your life!
Thanks to Net Hally and the Publisher for a free electronic copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. I've gotten so many good ideas for a garden at my home and I think you will too!

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This front yard gardening book exceeded my expectations! The instructions are very detailed and informative. It is filled with excellent pictures and tips for choosing intermixing plants and arranging yard space. I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

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FTC disclosure: I would like to thank Quart Publishing Group- Cool Springs Press for providing me with an advance reader copy via access to the galley for free through the NetGalley program.

I love looking through gardening magazines and this book was like a lovely indulgence for me!

There were step-by-step project ideas and designs that I will look forward to creating for my garden. The instructions were clear and thorough.

I enjoyed the many ideas that were presented. It was more of a diary-style, experience-based look at front yards rather than a strict how to, which I appreciated. I was also left with wanting just a bit more.

With that said I hope to see a part 2 follow up. Perhaps it was the teaser (according to my interpretation) I found myself becoming fixated on. I would have loved to have read more about the author's own adventures in gardening from a design perspective. Which I'm sure is the case for all of our gardens though, as projects are always under completion, but I would relish in seeing before and afters, and the rationale behind them.

I would love to see an extension about what would differentiate the front from the back a little more. It did touch on curb appeal and being mindful of HOA observances which was excellent. I would enjoy a bit more detail on layering and mimicking nature within the confines of integrating non-native plant life as well as working with different woods, metals, stones, and plastics... and more information about design principles, color options, matching or not matching housing structure, how to convey mood, etc... which are typically so important when showcasing the front yard because everyone sees it and there is less creative control when you want to be whimsical but not have it looking like an every day yardsale which I could totally see myself doing. I thought the hedge piece was the most complete at illustrating the how to concepts I was looking for as they relate to choosing a design for privacy, height, and aesthetic goals. I'd like to see more of that in the way it was presented.

All the photos and ideas were beautiful and inspiring nonetheless! And it was thoughtful to include shoutouts to wonderful resources. It introduced me to new concepts such as thriller, filler, and spiller.

This was a unique book with a lot to offer as putting edibles in the front yard is a rare find in and of itself! I am looking forward to implementing some of the designs and making some of the projects contained in this book. It would be a great resource guide for any gardener or a great house-warming gift and I am looking forward to reading more from this author.

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Tonnes of inspiration and ideas in here, as well as practical DIY plans, guidance for planning and much more besides. Very good.

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Gardening Your Front Yard is a moderately comprehensive tutorial for turning unexploited yard areas into productive gardening spaces. Due out 10th March 2020 from Quarto on their Cool Springs Press imprint, it's 208 pages and will be available in hardcover format.

This is a well written and engaging tutorial which really deconstructs and creatively looks at the front lawn area of most suburban homes. This isn't about ripping up lawn and letting native plants ("weeds") run rampant, but rather about creatively re-imagining and utilizing the space for alternative purposes, whether entertaining or bio-friendly goals.

The first chapter's introduction focuses on seeing what the reader's constraints and possibilities are and brainstorming creatively. There are practical project tutorials in all of the chapters. The first (introductory) chapter includes a really good treatise on decreasing street noise and increasing security (no bushes or trees should block the sight line to the front door, for example).

The following chapters' projects are arranged roughly thematically: increasing green rooms at the front of the house for social/entertaining, flowers and foliage beds (including a great tutorial on making a cutting garden as well as attracting native pollinators), attractive vegetable gardening which work in the front yard (yes, it's possible!), xeriscaping (water saving), and permaculture and other features like sedum carpets.

There are a lot of good and usable takeaways in this collection. The photography is stellar and the writing is clear. Four stars.

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An informative and useful book, full of hints and ideas.
I liked how it is organised, the beautiful pictures and the well written texts.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

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Thank you NetGalley and Quarto Publishing for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this book.

Thirty some years ago I started out with a sweeping front yard of grass and overgrown evergreens. Over the years I totally transformed the front yard into flower gardens where people would walk by and stop to see what was blooming seasonly and ask for seeds or a start of a desirable plant. So, you can tell, I am totally into front yard gardening and have been for some time.

This author appears to be knowledgable about landscaping and has also included numerous small DIY building projects to enhance your front yard garden.

The photos are attractive except for the ones in which layers of shrubs appear to take over the front yard obscuring the house while looking unkempt and overgrown.

This book contains many useful ideas whether the front yard is small or massive. It focuses on the use of: flowers, vegetables, shrubs, trees, walkways, furniture, and container planting as well as many other things. A useful addition to this book is the guide to sources included at the back.

Gardeners of various experiences would find this book a useful addition to their gardening reference library.

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